this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 67 points 4 months ago (2 children)

My foreman would always say "Love my job" in a happy tone after anything bad happened on a job site. The happier the tone, the worse it was

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

"Dear God, he's doing H.M.S. Pintafore. We have to leave. Now!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I know that guy

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (10 children)

Fun fact: in America asking "how's it going?" is just a greeting, nobody really cares

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Brits ofen say "You alright?" As a substitute for "Hi."

Pretty jarring when you're not used to it. Id think "God, I must look like shit if they're genuinely checking on my welfare!"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah Tom Scott did one of his linguistics videos about that, he had a word for it but some questions aren't really questions they're basically just rituals, though rephrased a different way makes them genuine questions, and when you have major dialects of the "same" language like British and American English, we use different ones. "Are you alright?" is basically a noise of greeting in Britain and an expression of genuine concern in America, while "How are you?" is the reverse.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Won't stop us from having a conversation or even just bitching about something that is randomly bothering us.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I feel like the one going on about defcon does not know defcon 5 is actually pretty chill

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Should've gone the Kanye route and said defcon 3

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

*death con 3

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (10 children)

My favorite to use: "not gonna lie to you."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

My coworker once when I asked him a hard question: "Don't make me lie to you."

I still think of that a lot and try to work it in when someone asks me an impossible question.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"I'm doin." -I am not doing well and I don't want to talk about it. But I'm also too exhausted and shattered to keep lying about my mental state for the sake of social niceties, so I'm hoping my vague, neutral statement will either convey what I'm feeling, or you'll fill in the blank with whatever you want to hear. Just as long as you stop asking how I'm doing.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Defcon 5

I never know if they're meaning that it's not that bad, or if they actually mean defcon 1.

Because with defcon, the lower the number, the worse the situation.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

"The situation is so bad, it can't even be defined!"

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

"Too blessed to be depressed" - they're a Christian fundamentalist who is depressed but trying to convince themselves otherwise. You should run.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm here ain't I = Defcon 5

So normal then?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

Yeah, def on 5 is basically civilian peace times, right?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Seems very American. If you ask a German you be prepared to not get Smalltalk.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This isnt small talk, this is a survival mechanism to figure if the person will enact violence on you or not. Optimally you want the response to be empty words, grunting, or being told to fuck off.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

A friend of mine, married to a European, said that I should have been born in Europe, not the US, due to my hatred of small talk.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Wh... what's y'alls base suicidality level

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Our national holiday consists of drinking and playing with explosives at nighttime. You do the math.

It's generally a very cheerful level of suicidality though! Would be awful to bring the mood down by making a suicide all somber or some shit.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

it's not bad

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Fair to middlin'

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Living the dream!

Nightmares are dreams, right?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

"Living the dream!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I hope to wake up any day now."

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

In the opposite direction, when I moved to England it took me a while to get used to compliment "inflation" over there.

For example when somebody's opinion on something is:

  • "interesting", it means it's shit
  • "ok", means it's bad or mediocre
  • "good" and "great", means it's average
  • "wonderful" and "amazing", means it's good

I once asked one of the natives how did they transmit the message that they trully believes something was a 10/10 and was explained that's done by going into details on how something is so great.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Don't forget "too blessed to be depressed"= I think God will be angry with me if I admit life (read: murica) isn't perfect

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

Her horrors persist, and so do I.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Where does "Good enough" fit on the scale? Asking for a friend...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

"Good enough" is "My head is barely above water and I'm wondering if it's worth the effort"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Good enough= My day is shit, My week is shit, My life has been shit, but it's not as shit as other people so I don't have the right.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm German and for me, "can't complain" means I have nothing to complain, I'm fine, nothing special

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I find Germans have an easier time replying to things very frankly and without garnishment or humor. I can ask a German, "How are you?", and he may reply with "I'm fine" and it can be taken at face value.

Americans tend to be more, I don't know, conflict avoidant in their replies? There's more expectation of subtext, of irony, and it's not as typical to take "I'm fine" at face value.

"Can't complain" is another good one. It's often heard as, "I can't complain [because nobody would listen anyway]". Tone is important, as is environmental context. Blue collar workers at the site say this, yeah their day is going to shit. Your buddy says it over drinks, maybe he's having a neutral, normal time of life, or maybe his life is going to shit and he's giving the ironic answer to avoid diving into his real issues, while still communicating that things are not perfect.

Last week I was asked how my day was. It had been a perfectly normal, decent day, good time at work, beautiful weather, and my reply was "Life's a peach". I got back, "That bad, huh?" Yeah, the American habit of taking genuine expression and searching for a darkness under it can be tiring sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My high-school friend group adopted "it goes" from our French class ("Comment ça va?" "Ça va!", roughly meaning "How goes it?" "It goes!" being the common neutral greeting taught in French classes) and I slightly resent it being described negatively here.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (8 children)

‘Nother day, ‘nother dollar…

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"On the right side of the dirt."

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

DefCon Stages:
5 - "I'm here, ain't I?"
4 - "ain't dead yet."
3 - "it is what it is"
2 - "I'm not gonna lie to you"
1 - "...don't worry about it"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I often respond with: “Well, I’m still kicking and screaming.” I don’t know why. I think it got used a lot when I was growing up - someone getting dragged kicking and screaming.
Folks get tripped up by that.

For me, it means that despite the fight being hopeless, I’m still trying.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Fuckin a, man.

So far, so good.

Is another of my favorite responses to "how's it going"

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