tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post744137137399818694..comments2024-03-25T15:07:41.959+00:00Comments on Nigeness: No ProblemNigehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-79386231384352631982017-03-19T00:12:17.310+00:002017-03-19T00:12:17.310+00:00No problem--"no problem" is rapidly yiel...No problem--"no problem" is rapidly yielding to "No worries." "Not a problem" I don't hear in the US, though I get around only so far.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-39069053340395922562017-03-18T20:09:12.168+00:002017-03-18T20:09:12.168+00:00As for 'I have no problem', why have probl...As for 'I have no problem', why have problems - or rather their explicit absence - become so insistent in the tea and sandwich trade these days?:<br /><br />'Can I have an Americano, please?'<br />'Not a problem.'<br />'Thank you.'<br />'No problem.'<br />'Can I have hot milk?'<br />'Not a problem.'<br /><br />Why, why, why?<br />Marynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-91120931586696497522017-03-18T14:24:14.616+00:002017-03-18T14:24:14.616+00:00So new?<a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2570" rel="nofollow">So new?</a> Dave Lullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01053227199985293516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-36243339462054351862017-03-18T13:56:45.524+00:002017-03-18T13:56:45.524+00:00"So", I think, came out of the speech of..."So", I think, came out of the speech of teenage girls, as so many habits seem to--forty years, the way of ending a sentence on a rising inflection identified one as having grown up in western Pennsylvania, but then the girls took it up, and it infected the rest of us. I don't hear doubled the "is" at all. For that matter, I don't hear "meet up with" much. That seems to me to collapse "meet" and "catch up with". "Different than" probably is an Americanism, and I fear that it is invincible now.<br /><br />"It was, of course, some inane misunderstanding, and sprang from my unfamiliarity with the language. For although two nations use the same words and read the same books, intercourse is not conducted by the dictionary. The business of life is not carried on by words, but in set phrases, each with a special and almost a slang signification."<br /><br />(Robert Louis Stevenson has just been talking to a hotel clerk in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in the late 1880s.)<br /><br />Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-27385559358938773512017-03-16T21:11:38.696+00:002017-03-16T21:11:38.696+00:00'So' answers are usually made by those who...'So' answers are usually made by those who consider themselves to be scientific experts (American scientists always use it). This confers on them the right to address the rest of us as dimwits. It speaks of the authority that science is now considered to have to give us the last word on everything.Guy Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02304053177188950094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-10301586183403026942017-03-16T20:58:08.234+00:002017-03-16T20:58:08.234+00:00Oh yes, all of those...Oh yes, all of those...Nigehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-52360829363387430562017-03-16T19:48:43.366+00:002017-03-16T19:48:43.366+00:00... diverse and vibrant ... robust and transparent...... diverse and vibrant ... robust and transparent ... going forward ...Frank Keyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12762546247488319616noreply@blogger.com