English English to Everyone Else English translation

[ergophobe]

I know a lot of people here are English and speak that language as natives. Some of us, of course, speak foreign languages, like American or Canadian or Australian and may occasionally need translations to prevent misunderstandings from breaking out.

In American English, by the way, "misunderstanding" means "fight" and if you are a nation and you hear that word from the US govt, you should immediately start checking the supplies in your bomb shelters, unless we mean it in lieu of an apology for accidentally bombing your embassy.  

But the purpose of this post is not to make fun of myself and my countrymen, but rather to pick on foreigners.

[Rupert]

Brilliant, and so true.

  An American lady was discussing the "You must come to Dinner" on radio 4 the other day.  I had not thought about it before then as to its true meaning.  But she was right, the chances it really means "come to dinner" are slim.


"With the greatest respect" OTOH, I don't use. I have heard my Dad put me down with it too many times.  He was trying to be gentle to an idiot.

[Woz]

I use "with respect" often when I want to convey that whilst I may disagree, I still respect. Hopefully that is how it is taken.

I do have an issue with "not bad" though. I taught ESL for a while and one trick I would play was to ask the students how they were, to which they would usually reply "not bad." I would then give them curry as I asked how they were, not how they were not.

Ahhh, English, such a misunderstood language. (Does that mean we're going to have a fight???)