"Quite" means quite different things in the US and the UK скачать в хорошем качестве

"Quite" means quite different things in the US and the UK

Originally posted: 9/19/2022 British vs American English: Quite Edition Transcription: If a British person tells you a food is quite good, pick a different meal. Do we not trust people from the UK? No, it's because we use the quite common word quite in quite different ways. In American English quite is an intensifier. It makes whatever it describes, even more of that thing. Quite fun, even more fun than fun, really fun. Quite good. Very good. But a meal that is quite good in the UK is not very or really good because they use quite for basically the opposite purpose. In this type of context, for them quite diminishes what it describes. It's a mitigator, not an intensifier if you want a fancy word for it. (Unsurprisingly, it's a little more complicated than that. Quite is a mitigator if the adjective can have varying degrees like good or fun, but it means completely if the adjective is all or nothing. Quite finished, quite dead, quite alone). For comparison if you tell an American that a meal is somewhat good, they'll probably keep perusing the menu and apparently that's how British folks use quite. A meal's quite good, well, we can do better than that. American parents, if the kids are playing quite happily, you'll leave them alone, right? Seriously. Don't interrupt. You'll ruin the equilibrium. But for British parents, things are probably fine, but they might want to take a peek. Okay. Wait, wait, what does this mean about the show Quite Interesting? Should that be translated into American English as fairly interesting? Well, I find that quite interesting. Hey, thanks for watching. Come along if you like. #quite #british #american #britishenglish #americanenglish #english #language #linguistics #grammar