Submitted 10 months ago by Karcinogen@discuss.tchncs.de to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
“Do you want to do this thing with me?”
“I’m down.”
“I’m up for it.”
As a non native speaker, this messed me up for years
I always heard about “being up” for something, so I logically assumed that being down meant the inverse. Even more that “feeling down” usually means not being able to do things.
Not to confuse you more, but with your phrasing you are correct.
If you’re up for it, or being up for something, you are interested. Similarly, if you’re down for something, or you’d be down for it, you are interested.
But if you are feeling down, you are not up for it.
The former 2, the verb is the action of being ready.
In the latter, the verb is feeling and down is the state.
For example, despite me feeling down I’m down to go out and party tonight.
It’s not about the crest or the trough. It’s about the motion of the ocean baby.
Up and down are both disturbed, ya dig? It means the thing made an impression on you. Got under your skin, gave you the itch, it’s bugging you, eating at you, lighting a fire under your ass, putting you in the hot seat.
No more smooth sailing. Buy the ticket, take the ride, you know? Get this idea off the ground, get up and bounce. You know, jump around.
Get up, get up, and get down.
“Hey you want some potato chips?”
“Potato chip sounds good” => Yes please
“I’m good” => No thanks
Messed me up all the time first time came to the US
“I’m good” here means “My situation is good” means “I have what I need already”
Saying no is hard in all languages
To me it usually goes like this:
“No.”
Or sometimes:
“Nope.”
Or when I’m feeling polite:
“No, thanks.”
It makes a little more sense with the context that “I’m down” is shortened slang for “I’ll throw down on that”, itself slang for “I will get in on this situation” (as in “throwing down” some money or chips when gambling)
I thought it is short for “I am putting myself down for that” or “put me down for that”. As in, putting yourself down on a list for attending an event.
In my friend circle we will invite each other to stuff and ask “are you up or down?” Then schedule them regardless of response.
Similar to calling in sick and calling out sick.
Because it’s “calling in, sick” and “calling, out sick”
Yeah when you call in Is you have the day off but want to work so you call into work
We “bang out”, when using a sick day.
In the late 80s, bad and good were the same thing!
More recently, the difference between good and bad is in the presence or absence of the word “the” before “shit”.
This is problem with Russian language.
это радио щит!
“I think he likes the radio”
“But we’ll never know!”
This is true in 2014-2024 as well
… Tricks are for kids he plays much gigs
He’s the big bad wolf and you’re the three pigs
He’s the big bad wolf in your neighborhood
Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good
Run DMC
You can be cool and hot at the same time.
Ive learned that I can also be neither
Get up, come on get down with the sickness
Flammable. Inflammable. Famous. Infamous. So many dumb prefixes that make no sense.
There really needs to be more language revisions every couple decades to get rid of stupid shit or revise letters, words, and spellings to be more in tune with their phonetic pronunciations.
They aren’t dumb, peoples’ usage is just poorly informed and incorrect.
Famous/infamous are not synonyms, so you shouldn’t be using them interchangeably. Infamous specifically means “Famous for the wrong [read negative] reasons”. Like a serial killer. Or somebody who is famous for knocking over and breaking a priceless work of art.
If something is flammable, it can be set on fire. Like wood, or paper. If something is inflammable, that’s still true, but it has the additional property of being able to spontaneously combust, without being actively set alight. Like oils, or unstable chemicals, or some explosive material.
These are levels of nuance which are actually really useful, if handled correctly. The fundamental rule appears to be that in an “in…” word, the prefix gives specific detail about how the object holds the properties of the suffix.
Sounds like you just used the guardian’s op ed which is just some random dudes opinion on how they should be used.
C / K / S. Remove X. Change letter names to match their sounds.
A / ugh / Ayyy.
B = Buh
C = Removed?
D - Dih
E - same?
Etc. etc. there’s better linguists than an old school Grammar Nazi turned Language Darwinist.
C has some uses other than K/S. The usage in "ch"ess, for instance. We’ll have to shoehorn some other letter here if C is eliminated.
You can cut a tree down and then cut that same tree up
The number of potential misunderstandings in English is why our language is the world favourite lol
Because america does media gooder
Is it just me or are people also using hands up instead of hands down? As in: this is hands down/up the best post I’ve read all day.
As a non English native this always throws me off.
Aussie chiming in: haven’t heard hands up before, might be a US thing
US here, we use “hands down”.
That is hands down the worst children’s play I’ve ever seen.
I’m sideways.
‘Hot’ and ‘cool’ can also mean similar things about a person.
Father, I’ve been bad.
Mommy, I’ve been bad.
Mother’s gonna keep baby cozy and warm
Oooh baby, ooh baby, ooh baby
The first time somebody told me he was down I had to pause and wonder what he meant. Did he mean he was sad? Did he mean he didn’t want to do the thing?
Some day try to explain the meaning of the word cool to a non naive English speaker.
Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Gotta get up to get down.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 10 months ago
“I get knocked down! But I get up again! And you’re never gonna keep me down!”
justlookingfordragon@lemmy.world 10 months ago
On the other hand, “knocked down” and “knocked up” have drastically different meanings, which is a little confusing for foreigners sometimes. =P
ThePantser@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Pissing the night away is also a double entendre, meaning wasting time or literally pissing all night from drinking.