Interesting. I can’t think of a time I’ve heard it that way. I’ve heard “quite good” maybe used in the opposite situation, when you were expecting something to be bad, but it was good, as in “how was that movie?” “Oh, it was quite good, really.” Although perhaps the “really” is also adding to that contrary feeling. I can’t think of an instance where I’d hear “quite good” as being less than good but, ya know, dialects regional and all that.
Speaking of adding “to” to the end of sentences, in Chicago (and other points of the Midwest, particularly Germanic areas like Wisconsin), “come with” is used for “come along” (or a similar structure.) For example: “Hey, Joe, I got two tickets to the ball game on Friday, ya wanna come with?”
North American here, born in Pennsylvania, now living in Arizona. I’m probably more likely to say, “I was nearly hit by a car,” than to say, “I was almost hit by a car.”
“I go to university” is a North American phrase; it’s used in Canada. In Southern Ontario, we also draw the sharp distinction between “college” and “university”. University offers four-year programs of study leading to degrees; colleges offer two-day and three-year programs leading to certificates or diplomas. ‘Colleges’ also include any number of private trade schools. A number of colleges in Ontario have started to offer four-year degrees, which generally indicates that they are trying to become universities.
I’ve noticed people starting to use ‘uni’ for university as well, though that was not current when I was in university.
Regarding ‘rent’ vs ‘hire’: we rent a thing, but hire a person. I rent a car (to drive it myself), but hire a driver, even if that includes a car (to sit in the back in luxury while the driver deals with the traffic).
“Turn out the lights” is a pretty common expression. In fact, there was a popular song by Willie Nelson called Turn Out the Lights (The Party’s Over). Don Meredith would often sing that song on Monday Night Football when the score was lopsided in favor of one of the teams.
There’s also “extra long nice” which is sarcastic. When somebody does some crazy driving maneuver a common response is “Niiice move a**hole!” Or hearing about some really messed up people with 8 kids, all heroin addicts, etc.: “Niiice!”
It’s distinctly pronounced “ni-i-ice” with a little wobble between each “i” sound.
Ah, thanks for the correction and further explanation. I have a feeling somewhere in the back of my brain I knew this (perhaps from the Straight Dope thread about a decade ago that I referenced), but completely forgot about it.
I have an editor who prefers “toward”, “backward” and “afterward”, while I prefer “backwards” and “afterwards” nearly always and quite often use “towards”. The versions with the “s” on them are apparently more common in British English, but my personal background is US Southern English which I suspect also embraces the “s” forms.
I grew up with both forms, but the “-s” less forms have become engrained in my writing, at least, because of American style guides (like the Associated Press Manual of Style) that drop the “unnecessary s.”
That said, when speaking, I will often use the “s” forms, as in the phrase “Come towards me” or “Your shirt’s on backwards!” I’m from the Great Lakes dialect group.
My wife is ethnically Tamil, raised in the US by immigrants from India. She and her parents also often says things like “you can throw those leftovers”, leaving out the “away”. She also often leaves off the direct object of the verb “give”. For example, if one if our kids is pestering her to hurry up with the food, she might say, “I’m giving you!” I don’t know if that’s a feature of her parents’ dialect, or just something she does to set my teeth on edge.
ETA: on the topic of “throw” vs. “throw away”… Plenty of Americans say “toss” to mean “throw away”. “Can you please toss those leftovers”. But “throw” sounds off.
I prefer grape wine myself. Californian wine is a little too close to soylent green for my tastes.
Speaking of California-ism.
When I moved to Pennsylvania I had to work hard to eliminate the phrase “yeah, no.” from my speech. Something I said without thinking about it, which was always understood in my native California to mean “I fully understand but disagree” made people quite visibly angry with me out here.
“did you just say yes no? Which is it?” was a common response. Followed by much eye rolling and exasperated sighing. Occasionally arm flapping. Pissed people right off.
This is called the “need + V-en” (where en stands for passive participle) construction by academics and is most common in Western NY, Western PA, Eastern OH, and Northern WV.
Hmm. I fully understand and use “yeah…no.” Perhaps it’s just a California-ism that’s made its way into my dialect, but it’s certainly used and understood around here.
Bayard and Acsneray – interesting. My wife is specifically from the Indian Malaysian community – her parents speak Tamil – so maybe it’s more of an Indian English thing rather than a Malaysian English one, *lah. *