Going forward!

I wonder if my DD2 is having to learn "strine" before she teaches colloquial English to overseas students? Must ask her.

And my mum always said "never a lender or a borrower be" which would solve that conundrum. However I did love The Borrowers. I still do, because they live in our house, I've just not found them yet.

My comment on "may" and "can" was intended with a twinkle in my eye. I readily admit the soft impeachment of often canning instead of maying.

I can also see the difficulty of teaching colloquial English, innit?

I'm still left utterly confused by how a friend of mine came to use "with it" at the end of many of her sentences.

E.G. "So we took the dogs for a walk....with it" Or "DD called me earlier.......with it"

I know we all get little verbal "tics", such as saying "you know" but how anyone can put the phrase "with it" into a conversation so many times is beyond me.

During phone calls with her I found I was actually putting little marks on the newspaper every time she said it!

Language changes doesn't it. I often wonder what my grandparents would make of it all!

I wonder if people on TEFL courses are taught to intersperse there conversation copiously with 'like'.

Listen carefully next time you hear someone asked "How are you?" (or a similar question).

The spontaneous reply is nearly always "Yes!"
(Admittedly, often followed up next with "I'm good", as already discussed)

"Yes" still seems odd to me in that context.

Before you say it, I know I should get a life!

It'll just have to jar then, grumppa. It can't be easy to have to live with so much jarring. Perhaps you could get treatment – like learning how to chill a bit about unimportant matters .

(spoken kindly with a twinkle in my eye)

grumppa, people say Can I borrow...? in my world usually, not may I borrow? TEFL is to teach people whose first language isn't English how to communicate effectively. Effective communicaton doesn't always need to be pedantically grammatically correct. Using expressions native speakers use is just fine whether grammatical or not.

I must be in the minority here:
I find "may I ... ?" so old fashioned/formal that I couldn't bring myself to use it!

The only context I can think of where it still sounds natural to me is when it stands alone ( "May I?"), as an abbreviated form of things such as "Is it alright if I help myself?"

Perhaps because they all travel so much these days and pick up idioms from all nationalities.

I hope the TEFL course student was taught the difference between "may" and "can"!

And of course context matters and I know what people mean when they say "I'm good." And I don't object to US usage in a US context. That doesn't stop it jarring when I hear it in a UK context.

DD2 is teaching English to adults, now teaching advanced course which is colloquial English. Younger people tend to say I'm good rather than well or fine I think.
Like "stonking" - where did that come from - and disappear to?

MIL used to get annoyed when people answered "I'm fine". She said you should always answer with an honest explanation of the state of your health! And she did.

Evidence please, feetle.

Americans are scared of adverbs...

UK English is what people speak. Always has been and always will be.

Written English is more formal than spoken English but both are proper English.

When I was doing a TEFL course another student wanted to know what was the "correct" reply (so they could teach it) to a request such as "Can I borrow your ruler?" Our instructor answered his query by asking me the question (I was with a different group and didn't know about the discussion the student and instructor were having). My answer was this: "Yeah. Sure" and I handed him my ruler. I'm a native English speaker. What I said is 'normal', 'proper' English whether it's what someone else would say or not.

Same applies to "I'm good." No, it doesn't mean "I'm virtuous" in the context we'vebeen discussing. The context makes obvious what it means. Context matters.

People who speak English in the UK respond to "how are you?" with "I'm good, thanks", therefore it is UK Englsih now too regardless of what the language police say.

But Chambers Dictionary accepts the US usage as "informal" or "dialect". Nothing wrong with informal everyday greetings nor with dialect.

It wouldn't surprise me if the same people who object to the US use of good in place of fine or well would also support the retention of British dialect words because they enrich the language.

And in German 'gut' means well, as well as good. But UK English retains the distinction between adjective and adverb, at least for now.

I've just read something that explains the use of "I'm good" in place of I'm fine. The sentence, written by an American, was this: "You groomed him good too". She was speaking of an animal that looked good in a photograph; it had been groomed to look good. So the American usage is explained by the fact that they use "good" where we would use "well" or "fine".

Interestingly, good has a Germanic origin and fine has a Latin origin. That's interesting because the swear words that are regarded as the most "offensive" tend to be the ones with a Germanic origin. Their Latin-derived equivalents are often not even regarded as swear words. e.g. fuck/have sexual intercourse with.

Yes, apologies a missing !

To be fair, it was set out thus:

CROCODILES
DO NOT
SWIM HERE

and we never know if SIL is ditsy or constantly winding up BIL. The former, we think.

But this was on a small beach in a popular tourist resort. The locals would just say "You stupid or what? Eh?"

That sign's probably meant to be without punctuation, Nellie!

Oops! What ever happened to that final "G" "SLOW MEN WORKING"!

They have "Slow Men Workin" near us.

Like the ones that say SLOW CHILDREN CROSSING. Tell them to get a move on!

Point taken M74!!