Comments on: Divided by a common language

By: clew

clew — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 05:46:43 +0000

Here’s some ambiguous evidence for the American use of ‘quite’ to make the assertion stronger: from Applied Statistics for Engineers and Scientists, Devore/Farnum, 2nd. ed., p. 90: “The pattern in the plot is quite straight, indicating it is plausible that the population distribution of dielectric breakdown voltage is normal.” I say ambiguous because one, it’s a straighter plot than the other three on the page, but it isn’t straight; and two, we haven’t quantified ‘plausible’. (Both authors teach in California.)

By: pj

pj — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 07:43:04 +0000

These days, a young american is likely to eat a meal cooked by his girlfriend’s mother and remark, “This food is ridiculous.” Roughly translated, that means “quite good.”

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 18:48:17 +0000

Have contributors to the thread seen this? http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i41/41b01501.htm The author complains that there are too many British expressions in the American press… and, worse, ‘the trend is moving beyond journalism, and to terms that… have perfectly good American counterparts’. Now, if you swap ‘American’ and ‘British’ around, I’ve heard that kind of lament plenty of times over here. Usually, too, in an inverted version of the argument made in this article (Briticisms are pretentious and for poseurs): Americanisms are vulgar (etc, etc) pollutants of our pure and hallowed language (yawn). I have no idea if this writer has really identified a trend (Somebody tell the Daily Telegraph!) or is talking codswallop. But the moment someone complains about a new usage from whatever source on the grounds that ‘we already have a perfectly good one of our own’, I feel a compulsion to giggle at the absurdity of it. This is English we’re talking about, a language characterised by its excess of synonyms – in all its variants – isn’t it?

By: anne

anne — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 00:45:24 +0000

You’re looking in the wrong place. It depends on what “quite” is qualifying. If it’s indeterminate (eg “quite good”) then “quite” devalues. If it’s absolute (eg, “quite excellent”) then it intensifies. Cf quite nice and quite disgusting.

By: anne

anne — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 00:42:21 +0000

You’re looking in the wrong place. It depends on what “quite” is qualifying. If the word is indeterminate (eg, “good”) then “quite” devalues it. If the word is absolute (eg “excellent”) then “quite” intensifies it. cf Quite nice with Quite disgusting.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 18:20:32 +0000

While Americans are capable of irony, irony is passe (accent acute) now—heavy sarcasm is the new irony. Also, invective and abuse. (I note that my vice President has recently adopted my sophisticated style of debate. Civil, weenie CT types are being left in the dust.) I should also mention that the normative form of Godwin’s law has been abolished. Hitler is always already there, so the predictive form of Godwin’s law is trivially true. There’s no Hitler penalty any more, and anyone who says that there is is a Nazi and can go fuck themself. NOTE: There is something very popular in the US which is called “irony”, but isn’t. What it especially means is being devoted to really, really bad pop culture just because it’s bad, and making whimsically negativistic tongue-in-cheek comments all the time.

By: will

will — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:23:38 +0000

The title of the Housemartins’ “Now That’s What I Call Quite Good!” acquires new meaning.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 18:06:19 +0000

I thought of the ‘quite sure’ exception at some point (some much later, miles from computer, doing other, completely different things, point) yesterday. It’s true – quite sure means thoroughly sure, not fairly sure or rather sure. Mostly. The wretched word must have at least two uses. As a mild intensifier (quite good, quite nice, quite stupid, quite dull) and as a synonym for thoroughly (quite sure, quite ready, quite finished). That clears that up, right? Quite.

By: q

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 17:22:04 +0000

Have you got a rubber? Don’t ask your colleagues this in America (unless you really do want a condom, and not an “eraser”).

By: Rory

Rory — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 17:09:00 +0000

Jonathan, it’s a matter of tone. If I say, ‘Fred’s quite capable of making up his own mind, thank you’ in a firm tone, I mean that he really is capable of it. But if someone asks, ‘Is Fred capable of making up his own mind?’ and I reply, ‘hmmm, he’s quite capable,’ in an equivocal tone, then I’m casting doubt on it. (Disclosure: I’m not British, but I’ve lived here for a while; and we Aussies seem to follow the British in this. This whole US ‘quite good’ = ‘very good’ business has been quite perplexing.)

By: john s

john s — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 17:00:50 +0000

First time he went to the US, a Scottish mate of mine went hitchhiking. One woman gave him a lift but threw him out of the car when he politely asked her if she’d ever been abroad. What I want to know is where on earth “discombobulated” comes from?

By: redfox

redfox — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:31:29 +0000

Or my own grandmother, a war bride, who arrived in the US and told her new mother in law that the job she’d had at the BBC was frustrating in a variety of ways, “but at least [she] was getting a good screw!”

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:30:27 +0000

Sorry for the late entry into the thread, but I do find this very (quite) interesting. Does the British English ‘quite’ NEVER mean ‘very’? I’m an American who is also a big Gilbert & Sullivan fan. Gilbert wrote the following in London in 1881:

PATIENCE Sir, I will speak plainly. In the matter of love I am untaught. I have never loved but my great-aunt. But I am quite certain that, under any circumstances, I couldn’t possibly love you. BUNTHORNE Oh, you think not? PATIENCE I’m quite sure of it. Quite sure. Quite.

It seems extremely (quite QUITE) unnatural to interpret Patience’s last line as meaning that she is only reasonably certain that she could never love Bunthorne. Is the modern British English ‘quite’ different from the Victorian one, and more like the American one? Or does this passage demonstrate an exception to the ‘quite’ = ‘somewhat’ rule?

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:14:57 +0000

Another British/American usage clash in the original thread… ‘“Ticked off” in American idiom is not transitive — Clinton was ticked off, not the BBC guy.’ Which confusion engendered further slightly confused responses. The British usage is, as pointed out there, quite different from the American one. For that, meanwhile, we Brits would be more likely to say ‘pissed off’. Whereas we don’t say that we’re ‘pissed at’ someone (‘pissed off with’, maybe). And being ‘pissed’ tends to involve becoming extremely happy (until the hangover next morning, at least), not getting angry. Amazing how Brits and Americans ever manage to understand each other at all, really. Reminds me of the stand-up comic routine (Jasper Carrott, I think, but this was back in the 70s when he wasn’t entirely crap), on his first visit to the US, when he asked his hosts if they’d like him to lay the table…

By: charlene

charlene — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:39:53 +0000

“…an American would never answer “Are you ready?” with “Yes. Quite ready.” That sounds really British.” – hp 10.40pm I doubt anyone “British” has said “Yes. Quite ready” since Mrs Miniver, not to that question, anyway.