Public Service Announcement: American English v.s. English English

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I recently learnt (from a podcast I trust) that the word “quite” means different things in US and UK English.

I realised this was important when when John Vorhees just wrote this about Superwhisper, on the macstories newsletter

Superwhisper is a speech-to-text app for the iPhone and Mac that uses a variety of LLMs. I’ve been impressed with its accuracy and utility on the Mac, where you can use it to dictate into any text field. The iOS app is inherently more limited because it does not work inside other apps, but with the help of the share sheet, it’s still QUITE (my emphasis) useful. This week, the iOS app gained access to new LLMs that bring it in line with the Mac version

I thought John didn’t like the iOS version, but I think he probably did.

Perplexity told the this:

The main difference lies in how “quite” is used with gradable adjectives:

British English

  • With gradable adjectives, “quite” often means “fairly” or “moderately”
  • “The film was quite good.” (meaning it was fairly good, but not excellent)

American English
• “Quite” generally means “very” or “really” regardless of the adjective type
• “The film was quite good.” (meaning it was very good)
• “The view was quite amazing.” (meaning it was really amazing)

Hope that is helpful! I think the meaning is probably clearer when spoken since the level of enthusiasm comes through in the tone.

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England and America…two countries separated by a common language.

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As a Kiwi, I’d say two meanings apply, depending upon emphasis.

“It was quite good” means it was OK, not exceptional.
“It was quite good” means it was better than expected.

Neither means very good. In that case, “quite” would be replaced with another adjective like “really” or “very” itself, or something even stronger like “incredibly” or “amazingly”.

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Perplexity is doing a gross disservice to the British genius for constructive ambiguity.

  • “The film was quite good.” It was a bit rubbish but we are too polite to say so.
  • “The film was quite good, wasn’t it?”. We liked it.
  • “The film was really quite good.” It was a really good film.
  • “The film was quite amazing.” It was an excellent film.
  • “Quite right.” We absolutely, 100%, utterly agree with you.
  • “Quite.” What you said was bleeding obvious, but I thought I ought to acknowledge it some way.
  • “Not quite.” Stop talking drivel.

I’m being quite[1] tongue in cheek, here, obvs.

[1] At least Perplexity got this one right.

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I’ve always been perplexed (no pun intended, :slightly_smiling_face:) by the British use of “bloody”. So, I asked ChatGPT to explain its origin. (Please note that I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the results.) To our British (Australian?) friends, is “bloody” considered a mild expletive or is it just used for emphasis?

The origin of the term “bloody” in British English is somewhat debated, but it has a fascinating history. Here are the main theories:

  1. Nobility Theory:

One theory suggests that “bloody” originates from “by Our Lady,” a reference to the Virgin Mary. This would make it a minced oath, where sacred phrases are altered to avoid blasphemy. Over time, the original phrase likely became corrupted into “bloody.”

  1. Association with Violence:

Another explanation is that it relates to the literal meaning of “blood” and was used to describe violent or gory events, particularly in the 17th century. For example, a “bloody battle” would literally involve bloodshed. Over time, this morphed into a figurative intensifier, detached from its literal meaning.

  1. Royal or Aristocratic Origins:

Some linguists suggest it may have originated from the behavior of the rowdy, aristocratic “bloods” (young noblemen) of the 17th and 18th centuries. They were notorious for their wild, reckless behavior, and “bloody” may have been used to describe things associated with them, eventually becoming a general expletive.

  1. Shakespearean and Early Usage:

The word “bloody” appeared in English literature as early as the 13th century, and it was often used literally to describe something covered in blood. By the 16th and 17th centuries, it began to appear in a figurative or emphatic sense. For example, Shakespeare used the word in both literal and emphatic ways in his plays.

  1. Taboo and Evolution:

By the late 18th and 19th centuries, “bloody” became considered vulgar and improper in polite society, likely because it was associated with swearing and blasphemy. However, in the 20th century, it gradually lost its strong taboo status and is now seen as a relatively mild expletive in British English.

In summary, “bloody” has evolved from its literal origins, through its association with blasphemy, violence, and aristocratic behavior, into the versatile intensifier it is today.

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I’ve always heard that it was the first, religious, reason, though I’ve not looked into it in any detail and folk etymologies are often wrong….

It does fit with other ‘mincings’ (I like that…), though, some of which haven’t survived, except in dodgy historical dramas. “Zounds, Sir!” – for God’s wounds etc. My father used to say “Strewth!” (God’s Truth!) a lot (though not always at me), but I haven’t heard that for a long time.

The Oxford English Dictionary (Compact Edition) has fun with bloody:

IMG_0048.HEIC
IMG_0048.HEIC4032×3024 5.09 MB

I used to have access to the OED online through my local library, but sadly, that’s fallen victim to cuts (a personal subscription was £100-ish a year when I last looked), so I’ve had to resort to my old two volume microscopic type edition (which came with a free magnifying glass). That edition is dated 1979, but I suspect it’s based on a much older edition.

For example, I don’t think that this definition for ‘bloody’, would have survived much longer…

Bloody (2) As an intensive: Very. … and no mistake, exceedingly; abominably, desperately. In general
colloquial use from the Restoration to c 1750; now constantly in the mouths of the lowest classes,
but by respectable people considered ‘a horrid word’, on a par with obscene or profane language, and usually printed in the newspapers (in police reports, etc.) ’ b-y’ (my emph).

It thinks that the ‘annoying toffs’ derivation is most likely for this use.

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Two good books on the relationship between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE):

They address somewhat different issues, but both answer a lot of questions pertaining to this topic, and thus both merit a read.

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In Southern England (where I live) “bloody” is a relatively mild expletive but you’d probably not use it in front of your Mother or in a classroom and anyone under 50 years old probably would have much better alternatives (mild and not).

It would usually signify that the user is very much working class unless used ironically. For example, “squaddies” (private and non-commissioned soldiers) would use it plentifully among themselves, but their officers would use it ironically and often substitute “ruddy” (another minced blasphemy - medieval from “by the rood (cross)”)

British English is deeply layered so that we can usually tell exactly what social class and region someone comes from as soon as they open their mouth. This is not generally a good thing.

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Oh Sh** you’ve now added 2 more books to my ever-growing “I really want to read this” list

At last count I will need to live to about 105 to get through it. Based on my average number books read per year over the last 25 years and my current age.

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Lynne Murphy is a fairly light read (with hidden depths!) because she writes so clearly.

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No a book but you might want to watch the (BBC?) TV series by Melvin Bragg — aka Lord Brad of Wigton — in which he says that Webster created his dictionary to wrest control of English from … the English. Didn’t worked though did it?

By the way, Bragg does not include this comment in the book that accompanies the series.

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I have the same ‘problem’! I have used LibraryThing to manage books for nearly twenty-years now, and even though I review my list of books to read now and again, that list always contains far too many books than I will ever likely read. If you read one book on the subject, I recommend the Lynne Murphy book—it’s more general and broader in scope.

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I’ve watched a few episodes of the Bragg documentary on YouTube. My impression was that Webster had two motivations with his dictionary:

  1. to make the spelling of English more standardized and rational. English has one of the most complex spelling systems of a European language, so that aim may have been reasonable. However, I would say he added more complexity by introducing additional spellings for the same word (i.e., standardised and standardized)
  2. to consciously develop an American English identity at a time when the U.S. was very young and self-aware of its perceived insignificance.

I’m not sure he was trying to “wrest control of English” exactly, but nonetheless, given the variety of Englishes in the world today, I would say that nobody controls it—if anyone ever did!

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I read this somewhere on BlueSky recently (sorry, can’t remember who said it):

It’s not a reading pile; it’s a personal library.

That feels much better.

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Somewhat unrelated, Melvyn Bragg’s podcast “In our time”, from BBC radio 4, is very good.

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A fact I read somewhere… the “ise” ending on words like standardise comes from French. Earlier English used “ize”. Don’t recall where I read that so cannot verify its veracity.

Having spent four years at school learning German, and many years since forgetting most of it, I’m really glad English is my first language because it must be a pig to learn as an adult.

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Another recommendation that you might never get around to reading is “The Shortest History of England” by James Hawes. It really is short too.

His thesis is that you can throw light on a lot of the History of England (and the English Language) by realising that England has always a hybrid with marked differences between “the North” and “the South” somewhat masked by having a foreign (i.e. Norman) ruling class which didn’t even speak the same languages as anyone else. In more modern times those distinctions are still very real, but we’ve become much more of a melting pot, especially with the legacy of Empire . It’s no wonder the spelling doesn’t make much sense!

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There’s a standard called ‘Oxford spelling’, used by the Oxford University Press (and therefore all the Oxford Dictionaries) which requires -ize for some words of Ancient Greek origin – the ones which had a certain suffix including the equivalent of z – but not for the others, which didn’t.

This practice [of use -s- not -z-] probably began first in French; in modern French the suffix has become ‑iser, alike in words from Greek, as baptiser, évangéliser, organiser, and those formed after them from Latin, as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser.

Hence, some have used the spelling ‑ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer ‑ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining ‑ize for those formed from Greek elements.

However, the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek ‑ιζειν, Latin ‑izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic. In this Dictionary the termination is uniformly written ‑ize. (In the Greek ‑ιζ‑, the i was short, so originally in Latin, but the double consonant z (= dz, ts) made the syllable long; when the z became a simple consonant, /‑idz/ became īz, whence English /‑aɪz/.)

(Quoted from Oxford spelling - Wikipedia)

So, organize, but analyse, privatize but paralyse, and so on.

(Of course, some would say that privatization leads to paralysation, but that’s a different question.)

I’m not wholly confident that I follow these guidelines…

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I’m right with you there. The more I study other languages, the more grateful I am that English is my mother tongue. Our grammar isn’t all that complicated, but our spelling is horrendous, as in the title of the Dr. Seuss compilation, The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the Dough.

Then there are the vocabulary differences that got this thread started. I worked at a school in Uganda (Philosophy Centre Jinja) for a couple of years. I’m told that prior to my arrival, there was a disagreement among the faculty. The African and European faculty wanted to increase tuition. The American faculty were opposed.

It took a bit for them to figure out that the Americans understood “tuition” as “school fees,” when what the other faculty meant was what Americans would call “tutoring.” There wasn’t actually any disagreement.

Spanish can run into similar difficulties. If you’d like a good laugh, search YouTube for “Qué difícil es hablar el español.” :smile:

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Yup, listen to it occasionally. Though sometimes I fear one has to be one of the panelists he’s talking to to understand what is being said. And in one episode they talked about how the US flouted copyright for decades but now expect everyone else to respect theirs.