# Differences in the usage of "bore", etc., between American and U.K. English
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 8, 2022, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317 "2022-08-08T17:51:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317/21 "2022-08-17T13:29:33Z")
I think that in the Brideshead Revisited era, and particularly among the upper classes, “bore” had gained a wider sense something akin to “no fun”, which would encapsulate dullness and predictability but also being disturbing or aggravating or otherwise forcing people to deal with something they didn’t want to deal with.
Because if you were upper class in that era, fun was the whole point. You didn’t have to work, politics was run in your interest by people you knew who did find it fun, there was an army of servants to shield you from material reality. It was - or should be - tea parties, tennis, the Season, huntin’, shootin’, balls, house parties - whatever you fancied as long as it was diverting.
Anything that breaks up that idyll is “a bore”. Whether that’s someone actually being dull, or bringing down the mood of the party with a big rant, or pater being beastly about one’s allowance - all of these could be “a bore” because all of them disturbed the charming tenor of one’s days.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2022, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317/22 "2022-08-18T19:50:05Z")
> [@SanVito](#):
>
> I have myself called people who are frequently drunk and belligerent ‘boring’. Because they are. Boring as in tedious.
I would agree in the case of anyone who, when drunk, trots out the same anecdotes, jokes, or complaints every time. Then they’re being repetitive, which is obviously boring.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2022, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317/23 "2022-08-18T20:45:13Z")
I think it might also be a way of tailoring an insult. If you say someone is annoying, you’re admitting they got to you. If they are annoying, but you describe it as boring, you’re sort of putting them down in two ways at once.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2022, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-in-the-usage-of-bore-etc-between-american-and-u-k-english/969317/24 "2022-08-19T01:45:39Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> In British English there is a somewhat old-fashioned usage (perfectly exemplified by what you describe from _Brideshead_) where a bore is someone who is tedious or annoying.
Yeah, I tend to equate the posh-ish British usage of “bore” approximately with the colloquial American usage of “pain in the ass”.
Similarly, pBu “clever” ~= cAu “smartass”, and Bu “brilliant” ~= cAu “wonderful”.
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