When I moved to the UK a year and a half ago, I was immediately struck by how many different ways there are of saying the same thing. What I didn’t realize is that they don’t all mean the same thing and the English spoken here is more articulate.
In particular, I’m a fan of the adverbs (both formal and informal!) spoken in the UK. I’m sure I’ll be corrected on these, but below are five different ways of expressing hunger, in order of intensity:
- I’m rather hungry. I’m hungry to some extent.
- I’m quite hungry. I’m hungry to some vague degree.
- I’m well hungry. I’m hungry to an appropriate extent.
- I’m awfully hungry. I’m exceptionally hungry.
- I’m right hungry. I’m hungry to the extreme.
- I’m bloody hungry. I’m hungry to the extreme.
There are a bunch of verbs that I have fallen in love with as well. I knew some of these before moving here, but I didn’t really use them in speech.
- prod - to poke or jab with or as if with something pointed
- nick – steal
- bodge - make a mess of, destroy or ruin
- tread - to step, walk, or trample so as to press, crush, or injure something
- leg it – run!
- waffle – ramble on about nothing
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment…
