| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | Off topic: "Meaningless" phrases in English people use every day Thread poster: RominaZ
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Lingua 5B wrote:
Ex. I was like there and they like stared at me and like I went away.
These are called "fillers" in conversational English, and they don't have other purpose but to fill the gaps while the speaker is preparing a new sentence. Oral language is generally less organized, less planned and more spontaneous than written language.
You know, when I read that I was like OMG !
| | | | | Other languages & "please" | Sep 3, 2011 |
IwonaASzymaniak wrote:
We have it in Polish, and all the other languages I speak. I guess it is just natural in speech. It may get annoying if repeated too often.
One peculiar thing in Polish is to insert, at every 3-5 words, a prosze trzebie (informal) or a prosze pan (more formal), a habit some speakers have to indicate their obsession for an overrated politeness. I even nicknamed (behind his back) a Polish man 'Mr. Proszetrzebie' for his abuse of that expression.
Italian has exactly the same thing with prego. The funny side of it is that "prego" in Portuguese means a nail, those you drive into walls to hang pictures with. So any Brazilian who doesn't understand Italian, while listening to such an overly polite delivery may reason that the individual must be a carpenter!
Then we get to English. Of course, both PL/IT expressions above mean please. In any 'instructions' context in English, the text will read Please press the button X, Please enter your name/password, Please see overleaf, Please watever. It is intended to defuse the imperative tone of the expression.
In Portuguese, please is translated, in its simplest form, as por favor. Back-translating this in its fullest form, in English it would be As a favor, please do.... So, in an 'instructions' context in Portuguese, we don't use the please thing. The imperative is all right. After all, the individual following the instructions must have a purpose in doing so, therefore s/he won't be doing any favor at all.
Inexperienced EN > PT translators, unfortunately, work on a word-for-word basis, so they DO replace each please with a por favor. Therefore, if the sequence of instructions is long, the supposedly Brazilian user of whatever the instructions are intended for will come out from the process with the feeling that, after having done so many favors, whoever owns or devised that contrivance owes them favors for a lifetime!
| | | | | At the end of the day before breakfast... | Sep 4, 2011 |
I have been wondering for a long time, who is Uno?
Referred to in spoken English -- sometimes not at all, sometimes occasionally, sometimes continually, or even continuously.
Uno pops up in all sorts of situations -- is it a codeword, a secret signal, does Uno have a political or religious connection; whatever?
Please explain so that I can stop worrying.
[Edited at 2011-09-04 09:31 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
George Hopkins wrote:
I have been wondering for a long time, who is Uno?
Referred to in spoken English -- sometimes not at all, sometimes occasionally, sometimes continually, or even continuously.
Uno pops up in all sorts of situations -- is it a codeword, a secret signal, does Uno have a political or religious connection; whatever?
Please explain so that I can stop worrying.
[Edited at 2011-09-04 09:31 GMT]
I HAVE TO SAY I've never heard of this "Uno" thing. And I live in London ! Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong people.
"I HAVE TO SAY" is a particularly irksome redundant interjection.
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Giles Watson 
Italy
Local time: 02:42
Italian to English
In memoriam
George Hopkins wrote:
I have been wondering for a long time, who is Uno?
Uno who or Uno what?
G.
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José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
One peculiar thing in Polish is to insert, at every 3-5 words, a prosze trzebie (informal) or a prosze pan (more formal), a habit some speakers have to indicate their obsession for an overrated politeness. I even nicknamed (behind his back) a Polish man 'Mr. Proszetrzebie' for his abuse of that expression.
Italian has exactly the same thing with prego. The funny side of it is that "prego" in Portuguese means a nail, those you drive into walls to hang pictures with. So any Brazilian who doesn't understand Italian, while listening to such an overly polite delivery may reason that the individual must be a carpenter!
Then we get to English. Of course, both PL/IT expressions above mean please. In any 'instructions' context in English, the text will read Please press the button X, Please enter your name/password, Please see overleaf, Please watever. It is intended to defuse the imperative tone of the expression.
I must disagree about the Polish expressions, which, to be honest, are spelled 'prosze ciebie' and 'prosze Pana (male)/Pani (female)', not 'prosze trzebie' or 'prosze pan' and what's more, have completely different functions. 'Prosze ciebie' is a typical filler, rather old-fashioned and doesn't indicate politeness at all. As for 'prosze Pana' it is very formal and polite but that's just the way we address other people in Polish (the same as 'Sie' in German, similar to 'Sir' in English). Addressing somebody with 'you' in Polish (and I'm talking about people other than your relatives, friends, mates, etc.) would be highly inappropriate, even rude in most cases. So this is not 'a habit [when] some speakers have to indicate their obsession for an overrated politeness'.
Actually, used in different contexts these expressions might mean something completely different, e.g. 'prosze' itself does mean 'please', but also 'here you are' (while handing something to somebody) or 'you're welcome' too
| | | | | The point is in "please" | Sep 5, 2011 |
Beata Sadlek wrote:
I must disagree about the Polish expressions, which, to be honest, are spelled 'prosze ciebie' and 'prosze Pana (male) /Pani (female)', not 'prosze trzebie' or 'prosze pan' and what's more, have completely different functions. 'Prosze ciebie' is a typical filler, rather old-fashioned and doesn't indicate politeness at all. As for 'prosze Pana' it is very formal and polite but that's just the way we address other people in Polish (the same as 'Sie' in German, similar to 'Sir' in English). Addressing somebody with 'you' in Polish (and I'm talking about people other than your relatives, friends, mates, etc.) would be highly inappropriate, even rude in most cases. So this is not 'a habit [when] some speakers have to indicate their obsession for an overrated politeness'.
Actually, used in different contexts these expressions might mean something completely different, e.g. 'prosze' itself does mean 'please', but also 'here you are' (while handing something to somebody) or 'you're welcome' too
Point taken, Beata. My extremely limited knowledge of *ancient* Polish dates back from some 60 years ago, when my parents, some relatives, and their friends left Krakow and moved to Brazil. Though I could speak PL to to 'barely survive', any utterance of mine should arouse roaring laughter (as it has indeed, now and then). So it's safe to assume that this expression is no longer commonplace.
Likewise, upon reading on the press that the Italian Prime Minister has referred to his homeland, the country he is currently running, as paese di merda, it is equally safe to assume that the prego-driven politeness may have also faded into oblivion there. Btw, it is (or was?) also used in lieu of a You are welcome after a grazie.
However the all-pervasive please in all imperative phrases in English has remained. I wonder how much lighter software and web sites would be if the please were dropped in the imperative phrases, for the arguments I explained in Portuguese.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Stick to the topic please | Sep 5, 2011 |
the topic is:
"Meaningless" phrases in English people use every day
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| Summing it up... in a nutshell | Sep 5, 2011 |
Tom in London wrote:
the topic is:
"Meaningless" phrases in English people use every day
As determined from the contribution here, PL/IT have dropped the "abusively polite" use of their equivalents to please. Meanwhile, English has not. Okay, it's good to keep it in polite conversation between humans.
However in software, web sites, etc. I think that please click here, please press Enter, and so on, is unnecessary "machine politeness". It becomes meaningless when the individuals to whom these instructions are addressed are eager to get something done, and will not do it if they please - as a favor to someone else - but because they really need it done for themselves.
| | | | Adrian Grant
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| Formal objection | Sep 5, 2011 |
Well, I'm not convinced in any way, shape or form.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Another thing I obviously can't stand is people who say "obviously" when there's nothing obvious at all about what they're saying. I obviously went to the railway station the other other day and obviously caught a train and obviously it was raining so I obviously got wet.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Going forward | Jan 21, 2012 |
Going forward I hope this thread will become enriched with lots more contributions, so that we end up with an alphabetical lexicon of "today's most meaningless clichés" which could take the form of a wiki to which we can all contribute.
Going forward.
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Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
Hebrew to English
| Something I noticed.... | Jan 21, 2012 |
A few months back whilst watching the Young Apprentice (which is always a treasure chest for meaningless language)....
They seemed to litter their speech with "literally"'s.
"I literally went to the store", "I literally sealed the deal", "I literally made that sale".
It started off with one person saying it, but then caught on like some plague, I started counting the literallys but lost count.
A few of the times "actually" would have sufficed, in othe... See more A few months back whilst watching the Young Apprentice (which is always a treasure chest for meaningless language)....
They seemed to litter their speech with "literally"'s.
"I literally went to the store", "I literally sealed the deal", "I literally made that sale".
It started off with one person saying it, but then caught on like some plague, I started counting the literallys but lost count.
A few of the times "actually" would have sufficed, in other instances "literally" was just totally superfluous or even nonsensical. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sabine Braun
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:42
English to German
+ ...
| Well, basically... | Jan 22, 2012 |
I catch myself saying "basically" quite a lot these days and get really annoyed at myself. It has basically become a habit, sigh.
| | | | Ildiko Santana
United States
Local time: 17:42
Member (2002)
Hungarian to English
+ ...
MODERATOR
It's been spreading like a rash, at first only here in California but within just a few months has reached other parts of the country and even other continents. There is not a single day passing by now without it popping up somewhere, including international news or even our forums (for linguists?). I think it started in a Keanu Reeves movie, where one of his two lines was this, "Pretty much!" (the other was "Dude!")
I hear it on TV, radio, read it in the paper... it's a dise... See more It's been spreading like a rash, at first only here in California but within just a few months has reached other parts of the country and even other continents. There is not a single day passing by now without it popping up somewhere, including international news or even our forums (for linguists?). I think it started in a Keanu Reeves movie, where one of his two lines was this, "Pretty much!" (the other was "Dude!")
I hear it on TV, radio, read it in the paper... it's a disease. Latest examples include,
Costa Concordia cruise survivors: "I'm pretty much angry" and "Some people pretty much just decided to swim"
ProZ user - "...you cannot take them to Small Claims (...) that is pretty much reserved for disputes between individuals or customer complaints against businesses."
My apologies if my post infected anyone... ▲ Collapse
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