I know on IRC we've had the quite good = not bad conversation, but I'll repeat it here.
If someone tells me:
Your story was quite good -> I'm happy! I think that they really liked it. On a 1 to 10 scale, I'm thinking around an 8.
Your story wasn't bad -> I'm disappointed. I think they found a lot that needed to be changed and were trying not to be rude. 3 or 4 out of 10
Your story was rather good -> I'm in the middle. I'd think they were somewhat surprised, that they'd found the story to be better than they'd expected. A 5 out of 10.
Anna, the "Who are these flowers for?" issue...I was always taught never to end a sentence with a preposition, so saying the above would be considered grammatically incorrect. However, in order to fix it, you'd go with your other two options. I think, though, that that old rule has kind of gone out the window, and we USers would probably all agree that we'd more likely say the first because it sounds much more natural.
I thought of another one, although I'm not sure how common it is. The use of the word "mind" to mean "watch" or "look out for." When we were in London bopping around on the Tube, Ken and I would get a giggle out of the announcement "Mind the gap", meaning, of course, to watch out for the gap between the platform and the subway car. I think in the US the announcement would have been something like "Watch your step".
Another one that came up recently was "Inside" versus "Inside of"
UK Version Clark could feel her heart hammering deep inside her chest.
US Version Clark could feel her heart hammering deep inside of her chest.
These are all so interesting.
And Wendy, Paul defined smackdown before I got to it, quite well (in the US sense), I might add.
Lynn
