If I say 'I am fine', what do I mean?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-06-23 10:28:07 - Graham EllisWhat comes after breakfast and lunch? ... a question I asked on Friday's Perl course; rather than a straightforward answer, I was invited to choose between tea and dinner. And having selected "tea" and asked of what it might consist, I was reminded that tea is a very different meal in different parts of the UK ...
Last night, I'm ashamed to admit I was watching a very old edition of "Family fortunes". The contestants had to name 6 ways of saying "it is cold" as chosen by the studio audience; I came up with "nippy" but overlooked "parky" which I should have known, bearing in mind my more northern roots. But there you go; I was probably far closer to the mark than others I live and work with who - by contrast - would have come up with American or Polish terms far better than I could even hope to do.
Working in a company / living in company where my slant on English is not necessarily everyone else's, I have to ensure that I talk clearly at times and remember that certain words have - err - different levels, especially adjectives representing degrees of quality. Let's have a scale of five levels, should we?
| The tops! | Magic, Excellent, Wow | Great, Cool |
| Fine, Good | |
| OK, Acceptable | |
| Oh Dear! | Rubbish, Poor, Unsatisfactory |
There's a lovely smell coming from the kitchen so I'm going to cut off and grab some brekkies. Perhaps I should come back and quantify "lovely" a little later?