I was prompted to open this thread by looking at a list of vocabulary differences between UK English and American English, and it occurred to me that I’ve never seen the word “bit” in these lists, though there do appear to be differences.
From my Standard American perspective, a “bit” is a very small piece of paper, perhaps less than an inch long and a quarter inch wide. You certainly couldn’t draw anything on it. However, I recall reading that when the young George Harrison first became interested in guitars, he was covering “bits of paper” with drawings of guitars. I was pretty young when I read that, so I actually imagined him drawing nearly microscopic drawings of guitars on little scraps of paper.
In British usage, could a bit of paper be like a whole sheet? Or at least bigger than something that comes out of the shredder?
What do you consider a bit of something to be, and what is your country and or dialect?
Originally I was going to use the phrase “bit of paper” in the thread title, but changed it. Now it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense with the body of my post.
Could a passing moderator fix the thread title by changing “bit of something” to “bit of paper”?
American here, and I would consider a bit of paper to be a scrap, like a memo pad size or a quarter of a letter-size page. Certainly enough to doodle a picture or notes/lists on.
As an Australian who lived in England as a child, I would find it normal to refer to an A4 sheet of paper as a “bit of paper”. “Bit” is a very vague term, and the only definite denotation that I’d get is that a “bit” of something is small enough to be part of a larger whole. So an a4 sheet might be part of a notepad with dozens of pages. If I asked someone for “a bit of paper from your notepad”, I would be very surprised if they gave me a torn-off corner: I’d be expecting at least a whole sheet, and would not find it odd if they responded, "How many pages do you need?
Canadian - if I heard the phrase “a bit of paper”, I’d picture a very small piece - maybe something just big enough to write a phone number on. So yes, if someone mentioned drawing something on a bit of paper, it would throw me off a little.
It would depend on the context. A bit of paper could be a small scrap: “pick up that bit of paper from the floor”. A bit could also be a whole sheet: “hand me a bit of paper so that I can write down that address”.
Same here. To me, a bit of paper would be too small to comfortably hold still with one hand while writing on with the other. Maximum size would be the typical post-it note or ATM receipt, and definitely not larger than the palm of my hand.
What is an A4 sheet of paper? Canadian to whom a “bit” of paper refers to something less than an entire sheet of paper and in context often refers to tearing off a “bit” of paper to record something like a phone number.
It all depends upon how the word is used. A bit of paper may indicate the size of the paper of just a small portion of a larger amount (“hand me that bit of the newspaper, please”). Or, “you’re going to need a bit more paper” as in, that amount of wrapping paper isn’t big enough to wrap the present.
IMO, “a bit more” is more British than American–we would usually say “some more”.
It’s also used ironically in humor or sarcasm. Can’t think of any examples offhand, but someone here will.
The more I look at the word bit, the more nonsensical it becomes–it’s a meangingless word to me now, so I’ll stop. (I hate when that happens).
To this Brit, a bit of paper just means a sheet of paper, size irrelevant. I would ask to be passed “a bit of paper” and would be very surprised if only given a wee scrap.
What Jennyrosity said.
A bit of paper when referring to “scrap” paper for doodling/shopping lists etc could be:
The back of an envelope
A post-it note or equivalent sized piece of paper
A sheet torn from a notebook
An A4/ A5 page
A postcard
If I asked a classmate for a “bit of paper” because I had forgotten my notebook I would expect at least one A4 page, and my friends, being generous people, would probably give me at least 2 or 3 pages.
Just replace “bit” with “piece”, and it makes much more sense.
“Bit” is of course, slang, and when I was little, my grandmother would say “No dear, a bit goes in a horse’s mouth, you would like a piece”. No-one, except her, considers it incorrect English nowadays though.
I think Brits use ‘bit’ where Americans would use ‘piece.’
I used to work with a lot of Brit programmers. Where I would say ‘There are some more pieces of the program I need to test’ they would say ‘There are some more bits I need to test.’
‘Bit of paper’ = ‘Piece of paper’
It took me a long time to realize they weren’t just putting me on with all their talk of odd bits and such.
From the OP, I get the impression that a more accurate title for this thread would be “What, to you, are bits of paper?” Depending on the context, “a bit of paper” could mean several sheets, but this sort of bit would never be plural.
As an American, I would probably interpret a “bit” of paper as something less than a full-size sheet, possibly torn off from a larger sheet of paper. It would be big enough to jot down a phone number on or spit a piece of gum into, but not necessarily any bigger than that.
