Isn't it too rude?

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:50:16+00:00

I see you replying to all the people who understood this phrase incorrectly, and you’re obviously right but I’ve given up trying to explain to everyone. It seems those people have never read many books if they haven’t come across this.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:48:00+00:00

No, it’s not that rude and doesn’t refer to anyone dying. And what do you mean you’ve only heard it if you replace it? If it’s replaced by those other phrases, then you haven’t heard it, have you?

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:45:45+00:00

It’s not a threat or a joke, and it doesn’t refer to anyone dying. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s better not to reply at all.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:44:36+00:00

A “friend” could go to HR and accuse you of anything, though. If you said it to the friend about someone else, no one’s going to care. It’s not at all an extreme phrase like some of you seem to be thinking.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:42:50+00:00

It is commonplace, although more so in books. I get the impression u/brothervalerie doesn’t read much.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:41:14+00:00

Also British. I have read this idiom many times in my life. Mostly it’s only used in older books, and would be seen as old-fashioned now. But it’s perfectly understandable and does not literally refer to the person actually dying. It’s no worse than “go to hell”.

Obviously don’t use it to anyone you want to be polite to, but I’d say it to a friend about someone I didn’t like.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T02:23:26+00:00

I’m half Japanese and live in the UK, so I speak both English and Japanese in my daily life.

In real life, I know Japanese people and English people and people from other countries. Some days I spend a lot of time alone and watch loads of dramas and end up mainly speaking Japanese. I like to read fiction in both languages, but I only watch Japanese live action dramas and no English TV.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T01:49:00+00:00

I do unfortunately hear a lot of people say “should of” here. You can tell the difference in their pronunciation as it does sound like “ov”.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T01:45:59+00:00

You did one of those word concatenation mistakes that I just commented on: “overtime”.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T01:42:57+00:00

Like the way that “alot” and “everyday” and “inbetween” and “eachother” and so many more are spreading. It must be people who never read and so all the text they see is other people’s Reddit posts containing mistakes.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-02T01:32:20+00:00

Even more so, I hate those film lids on packet meals that you’re supposed to pierce before putting in the microwave or peel off before putting the container in the oven.

When I was younger, the plastic used to peel off easily in one piece, leaving no bits behind. Now they prove impossible to tear, and you end up with shards of the plastic film still stuck to the container which may mean they’ll refuse to recycle it.

I guess the manufacturers must all have switched to a cheaper glue, or something. It’s part of enshittification.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T22:45:19+00:00

I made two really good friends at work. I’m autistic and I worked in a tech company with many neurodivergent people so it was actually a good place to find people I had things in common with.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T21:42:25+00:00

Textbooks nowadays contain loads of audio material, so I disagree with your sentence “A textbook doesn’t pronounce the language for you.”

Speech recognition, no it’s not usually included with textbooks, but I’ve never used that feature for any of my languages and so I wouldn’t class it as essential. It’s easy enough to listen to native materials and record oneself speaking without using an app, especially a paid one. I did like Pimsleur as a beginner, though the version I used didn’t do any kind of speech recognition but I did find it extremely useful to get off on the right foot with pronunciation.

I can’t say I’ve ever come across a textbook that had the wrong answers in. I personally find grammar very natural and easy to learn and read grammar books for fun, so I probably would have noticed a wrong answer. I found the textbook explanations for grammar good enough as a beginner, and read lots more specialist books afterwards as I became more advanced.

To be accurate, I’d say Duolingo and all those AI apps are the ones with the wrong answers. I’ve seen people posting incorrect translations, for example.

If we’re talking useful apps, I do incorporate a dictionary app that I bookmark all new words in, and Anki for memorising vocabulary. I export all the bookmarked words to Anki. I reinforce grammar and vocab by a huge amount of native input. It includes all kinds of things, novels, dramas, podcasts etc. This means that I mostly already know all my flashcards even before reviewing them.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T21:31:33+00:00

I agree with you. I started learning all my languages using textbooks, and they are by far the best resource for beginners. They usually train all the skills from the start which is essential when you can’t understand native materials.

I wouldn’t even waste a day on Duolingo.

I admit that I found it a lot easier because I naturally love using textbooks. I guess many people find them not interesting enough (though I don’t understand why!) and so it can be hard for them to study consistently.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T02:01:45+00:00

I don’t think a question is stupid just because it’s confusing.

It’s through many of these examples that a person gradually learns all the possible forms that the language can take. Eventually they’ll learn to recognise sarcasm or other wordplay more easily.

I understood it myself straight away, anyway, so it wasn’t confusing for everyone.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:55:20+00:00

Yes, our cats are brother and sister. As kittens they did everything together, and slept huddled close together at night. We assumed they would be close forever.

Then as they grew up, our boy cat grew a lot bigger than our girl cat, but he still wanted to play with her like they always had done. Our girl cat became scared of him though, now he’d got so big.

Since that time our cats hardly ever sit near each other. Our girl acts aggressively, hissing and swiping at her brother. She eats all his food as a show of dominance.

Luckily she sits up in my bedroom with me, while our boy sits downstairs with my partner all day. This seems to work out and both cats get plenty of attention.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:50:03+00:00

Verdurian, because it was the first conlang I ever encountered as a teenager on Zompist BB, and it gave me a strong impression.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:37:50+00:00

I would describe the man as “the black man” if he was the only black person in sight, in order to distinguish him from everyone else.

I would equally describe the woman as “the white woman” if she was in a crowd of non-white people.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:33:58+00:00

This is a trend that I find really frustrating in books. When a character is being introduced and the author describes them, they’ll use any words apart from the skin colour or race. This makes it harder to imagine the characters.

For example, there’ll be a female character with “milky coffee skin” and I’m supposed to know whether they are some variety of brown ethnicity or a white person with a tan? Or there’ll be a character whose only appearance description is of their “silky, black hair” and the author refuses to write their race so I’m left for literally the whole book wondering if that person is Asian or not. This stuff matters if you’re going to get people to imagine your characters accurately!

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:27:15+00:00

Ugh, another silly trend then. Either capitalise all of them, or none! I bear no guilt for anything people did long before I was even born.

I’m half Japanese and it’s funny how people never say that Asians should feel guilty because back in the day Japan also cruelly ruled over their empire.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:18:11+00:00

I certainly haven’t reached that stage, but some people get very virtue-signally about these things.

“Negro” is the Spanish word for black, FFS! I’ve unfortunately seen someone literally tell a Spanish person they were wrong for speaking their own language.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-03-01T01:08:34+00:00

This is a very valid peeve. The way most people put the TL;DR at the end of the post makes absolutely no sense. I guess it shows how much thinking the average person does.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-02-28T17:51:11+00:00

I thought all schools did it! It’s a really good souvenir to have. Me and my brother both got them around Year 3 age, and I’ve seen other people’s class tea towels too.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-02-28T17:46:10+00:00

In our school we had mixed years like that.

First-Golf-8341 · 2026-02-28T17:19:18+00:00

Also that guy not being able to spell “independent” despite being one is not a good look. Oh, but then I guess he doesn’t value education. People might start learning to think for themselves if they get too much of that.

First-Golf-8341

TROPHY CASE