Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts

09 May 2009

You think you know English? You don't know English.

Compared to the British, Americans are newbie English users. In British hands, the English language is a tool of infinite subtlety. For example, when a Brit tells you that they “agree with you to a point”, this doesn't mean that, with the exception of a few aspects, agreement has been reached; it means they don't agree with you at all. The magazine The Economist once reported that English-speaking Dutch diplomats had to employ British translators in order to understand what their British counterparts were really saying. This adds a whole new dimension to arguments at the pub.