D3X73R

I've been meaning to blog about the British greeting All right?* or You all right? in part because I wanted to get feedback on whether I'm responding correctly, since it is something that flummoxes Americans ( and New Zealanders too, it seems ). Then this happened in my Intercultural Communication class on Friday: I was talking about the different parts of a conversation, starting with the opening, and mentioning along the way some of the ways in which the rituals differ in different cultures. The conversation went something like this: Me : Like the British greeting All right? That confuses Americans--we don't know how to respond. American Exchange Student : Wait, how do you respond? Me : Let's try.  (addressing a group of English students in one corner)  All right? English students (as one):  All right. English student 1 :  You know, it's like if Americans said You okay ? AmExSt : No, it's not. If you say You okay? to me, it means you think I look lost or u...

On Twitter, I usually post a 'Difference of the Day' between British and American English every weekday. But for the past four Octobers, I've done something different: the Untranslatable of the Day. Each year I've wondered: can I really keep this up for (another) month? Are there that many concepts that are put into words or idioms in Britain or the U.S., but not the other country? Well, we've come up with more than 80 so far, and this year, I kept a file of UotD suggestions all through the year and can say with confidence that there are enough for a fifth go-round and possibly a sixth!  The moment I start tweeting about 'untranslatables' I expect to receive tweets and emails complaining about the concept, particularly that 'nothing is untranslatable'. That's true in some senses, of course. What I mean by 'untranslatable' here is not that you can't express the same meaning in the other language/dialect, but that it hasn't been pac...