'Could do,' and other ways to say 'No'

Email accents, miscommunication, and an excerpt from the English-Kassie Dictionary of Commendable Britishisms

Translation: Slippery when wet. First spotted in London’s Barbican Conservatory; now enshrined on my desktop.

I recently saw a Colorado friend who happened to be passing through London. We had texted a bit but hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in three years, so we went for a walk around the galleries of the British Museum (of course we did). As we were leaving, he picked up on something in my voice.

“Wait a second,” he said, as we dashed across a busy road. “Hang on—do you have a British accent now?!”

I most certainly do not, and this question is laughable if you’ve met me, especially if you happen to be British. My accent is just about as generic North American as they come. But he’s right that something has changed about the way I speak. It’s not so much an accent shift as an inflection one, and my parents have commented on it, too. It happened by accident, and I think about it all the time.

The best way I can describe it is that I sometimes emphasize unexpected words in yes-or-no questions, so that the tone of the question itself reveals what I want the answer to be. I find it hard to perform this on demand, even though it often comes up in conversation with family or old friends. But maybe it goes a little something like this:

Instead of saying, “Do you want to grab a cup of tea later?”

I might say, “Do you want to grab a cup of tea later?”

I think the difference is easier to hear if you picture that the latter is accompanied by a raised eyebrow. In the first instance, it’s a genuine question, a mere suggestion. In the second, the inflection implies that something else is going on and meeting for tea is essential and/or urgent.

The art of expressing things without saying them directly is a feat the British have perfected over centuries. You won’t notice it straightaway if you visit the UK on vacation, even if you stay for a few weeks. It takes time and dedication to realize that you don’t understand the meaning of the words you’re hearing. Almost all the words are the same ones you already have in your lexicon if you’re from North America. It’s the definitions that are different. While we share a dictionary and have watched, read, and adapted each other’s media and entertainment for generations, a sentence spoken in London can sometimes mean the opposite of that same sentence if it were spoken in New York.

For example, take the opener, “I’m afraid I can’t…” In England, this is often used synonymously with “could do,” which means “no.” A literal translation into American English would be something like, “While I do agree that it is within the realm of possibility that I might say yes to that, no thank you, very much.” But when you start a sentence in the U.S. with the words “I’m afraid I can’t…” it often implies something more like, “I’m not confident about this,” or “I’m worried about what will happen if I say yes,” or “this is out of my comfort zone; persuade me.”

This hit me for the first time when someone emailed me last year to ask if I’d participate in a true crime documentary. They were making an episode about a murder in Colorado Springs, and my name came up because I had reported on it when I worked at the newspaper there. My year of knocking on doors and cold-calling victims’ family members was enough to make me uneasy—at best—about true crime as entertainment, but sending a rant about ethics felt over the top. So I kept it simple.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember enough to be a real asset here,” I responded, by which I meant, “Absolutely not, no thank you.” But when he came back and tried to persuade me by saying that real people like me are exactly what true crime documentaries need, and he was sure I would be much more useful than I thought I would be, I realized that what had become a non-negotiable “no” for me did not translate as such on the other side of the ocean. It was striking to realize that I had subconsciously adopted an email “accent” of sorts. I used to ask English or Scottish friends to do a sensitivity read for me when I was emailing a Brit I wanted to work with, to make I wasn’t being too direct and to double-check that my words meant what I thought they did.

“No no, this is all wrong,” a friend said once, when I presented an email that included a line like, “I’d be happy to meet for coffee when you’re in town.”

“‘I’d be happy to’ means you don’t want to do it,” he said. “Say ‘I’d be delighted,’ instead.”

Now, I also double-check my emails to Americans, to make sure I’m being direct enough.

YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT!!!

Over the last few years, my vocabulary has also changed quite a lot. I say “lovely” and “delightful” and “quite” quite a bit more frequently. I also use more sarcasm and understatement. When things are great, I say I’m doing “not too bad,” and when things are awful, I say they’re “not ideal.”

I love using Britishisms in conversation because it amuses me, and also because it seems to endear me to strangers who find it quaint to hear words and phrases like “faff,” “bin off,” and “could do” in an American accent. (Shoutout to my friend Ben, who enjoys feeding me words that are impossible to say in my accent without sounding ridiculous, just so that he can make fun of me for sounding ridiculous. Go on, you North Americans, I dare you: tell someone, with a straight face, that you “can’t be arsed.” It can’t be done.)

As someone who writes for a living, I already spent most of my waking hours thinking about words. In London, it has become a much more enjoyable obsession—even a sport. On any given day, I might speak to people from a dozen different countries, and overhear a hundred distinct accents and languages. I love sitting in cafes and analyzing which mundane English phrases sneak into conversations spoken primarily in a foreign language. Things like, “copy/paste,” and “I really hope so,” and “you tell me!”

I could write a whole book about all of this, and maybe, ojalá, someday I will. But for now, I’ll leave you with a few more of my favourite Britishisms.

Without further ado…

An excerpt from the English-Kassie Dictionary of Commendable Britishisms

Alas — “Thank goodness I already have something else going on so I have a legit excuse and don’t have to feel guilty about not wanting to do the thing you’re asking me to do.” i.e., in the context of turning down a date you don’t want to go on, “Do you want to grab dinner on Friday?” “Alas, I cannot.”

As useful as a chocolate teapot (idiom) — Not at all useful.

Bin off (verb)—To quit.

Could do — lol no

Does what it says on the tin — Does exactly as advertised, or is exactly what it sounds like. Comes from an old advertising campaign for wood stain.

The dog’s bollocks — The bee’s knees.

Faff (noun), to faff (verb)—Unnecessary, inefficient nonsense or annoying extra steps. Like, “Ugh, I really want to change banks but it’s just so much faff.” Also, to waste time or procrastinate or dither about. “Sorry I’m late, I was just faffing about.”

Fortnight (noun) — A period of two weeks. People genuinely use this as a measurement of time in casual conversation, like “what are you doing for the next fortnight?” or “How long will you be in Spain? / I’ll be there a fortnight.” Whenever people ask what British words are uncommon or unfamiliar in the U.S., they are always most surprised to hear that we only use “fortnight” in period dramas and that 95 percent of us have no idea how much time it refers to. “Really?!” people ask me. “What do you say instead, just like, ‘two weeks?!’” as if “two weeks” is an insane way to refer to “two weeks.” Alas, that we do.

Hoick (verb) — To throw something. “Like ‘yeet,’ but not.”

Moreish (adj.) — A way to describe foods that are delicious in a tempting way, so that you might have more of it than you mean to.

Not ideal—The worst possible outcome.

To be “off his/her/their crumpet” — Unhinged. As spotted in a very old Agatha Christie novel. “He was off his crumpet.”

To “pop one’s clogs” — To die. “When she pops her clogs…”

Turf you out (verb) — To get kicked out. “If they turf you out, you can come stay with me.”

Quite good — Very bad. Also: very good. Depends on who is saying it, where they are from, what their accent sounds like, what tone of voice they’re using, and what’s being discussed. In other words, I’m still working on figuring this one out.

Special thanks to Luke, who sits next to me at work, for confirming that I have defined these Britishisms accurately. He cannot believe we don’t say “fortnight.”

Alas.

What are your favo(u)rite Americanisms / Britishisms?

The growing “Brit List” on my Notes app could do with a few new additions, so I’d love to hear your favourites in the comments below. I’d love to hear your favorite Americanisms, too, as people often ask me for them but they’re harder for me to identify as unusual. A few examples I’ve come across are things like, “out of left field,” and “it’s a slam dunk,” which are from baseball and basketball respectively, and “spring for,” as in, “to splurge on.”

Feel free to share interesting slang and idioms from other languages, too! I don’t hate this stuff.