Day 20: Improve Your English

[Ute42]

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I've been letting my place in Germany for 16 years through all kinds of distribution channels. Until 2017 all my guests were German. In January 2018 I decided to start listing with airbnb and I thought, I might now get international guest, time to polish up my English.

At the time my english was kind of ok on a smalltalk-level, what I was completely lacking was the vocabulary around hosting, bedding, cleaning and the like. In order to improve my english in this specialised field, I decided to start reading in the english community center. Because refering words would pop up in this forum for sure and they did.

Whenever I found a word that I didn't know I looked it up in some online dictionary. Next thing I did I created a spreadsheet with all these new words, an airbnb glossary. This is how it looks:

Sometimes though an online dictionary is not sufficant to find out the meaning of a word or an expression. A while ago some Robin in Australia opened a thread entitled:

• Stirring the pot

I couldn't find out what that means. So I sent Robin a privat message and asked him flat out: Robin, what means stirring the pot? Here's his answer:

• I will answer one expression with another....Stirring the pot is linked with Playing the devils advocate!! When you 'stir the pot', you keep the contents on the move, you stop them from boiling over but you keep some action going on in the pot! To bring that into context here Uté it means you keep the thought alive and in others minds by reactivating a worthwhile discussion. You keep on bringing up the same conversation.

Ok – thank You, I've got it. But Robin didn't stop explaining. He continuoued:

• And by playing 'Devils Advocate' you deliberately bring alternative ideas to the conversation. You will state an opinion you don't agree with for the sake of promoting conversation on a subject! Mark Rutte the Dutch Prime Minister may say that no more funds should be made available for EEU bailouts and Angela Merkel may disagree with him and say Germany and France have a duty to support the European community! Although you Ute, agree with Angela Merkel you deliberately take the side of Mark Rutte in order to bring new ideas up that may make both sides agree.

This was not the end of his explanation. Then he talked about the expressiveness of the english language, that it's like a river flowing to the sea, about channels and ditches, empty streams,

tributaries, directions and the ocean.

You must know one thing: Whenever You drop @Robin4  two lines, he comes back with 37 lines. Robin loves to write, he's a great writer an many people in the CC love him for that.

By the way: I learned another word from Robin:

• Jibber Jabber

Have You ever seen that before? I found the word in one of Robins posts:

• But company 'jibber jabber' like that don't instill me with confidence.

I forgot which company he was talking about, but it doesn' matter in this context anyway.

I continued to read in the english CC and while cruising through the lines, again and again I came across the word „bleep“, and it was always accompanied with 2 asterix' in front and in the back:

• **bleep**.

It's easy of course to find out what bleep means, that's the sound a bird makes when it tweets. But **bleep** came up in so many places and in so many contexts and none of them was bird-relatet. I just couldn't figure out what the meanig of it was.

And then this happened: In 2015 I hosted a group of 4 young religious women. While checking them in they told me that they will not check in, because they didn't like my place. I was furious. This was the first time in one and a half decades that someone refused to check in. In 2018 I told this story in the Comminity Center. I wrote:

When I looked how it came out in the community center, I saw this:

• For the first time in 15 years, 4 young religious womed from **bleep**,
  all wearing a **bleep**, refused to check into my place bc they didn't like it.

Aaaahaaaaa, now I understood. Airbnb has a discriminating word detector in place and whenever such a word pops up, it get's erased and replaced by **bleep**. All of a sudden everything made sense. Ever since this incident, whenever I talk about people from that area, I refer to them as „People from an area that starts with „a“ and ends with „rab“. The airbnb detector never cought me on that.

My best source of new vocbulary is the lovely @Susan17  in Dublin. While an average english native speaker has a vocabulary of 20.000 word, I think she has 60.000 words to choose from and she does. Here's a list of words I found in her recent threads:

• incendiary, knick-knack, skedaddling, flashing shamrock deely-boppers, Begorrah, malice or sleight, misogynistic, funnelling, beano, feisty side, Geezer, pesky, besmirch, abdicate, villain, astroturfing,

I had to look all these words up. Meanwhile I have restrikted myself to not reading more than 2 Susanposts per day, because it's so much work for me. Same as with Robin in Australia, sometimes I cannot find out the meaning of the words she uses through a dictionary, so I have to ask her. Recently she used the word:

• jack sh*t

Did You see how clever she is? She's putting an asterix into the second word to fool the airbnb bad word detector. So I had to asked her and here's her answer:

• Well, "jack sh*t" is a slang term that originated from the poker world, and refers to drawing an opening hand of Jack, two, unsuited (of different suits - hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades) - and it's considered to be the worst possible hand you could start with.
  
  - Did you have a good hand?"
  - "No, I had jack sh*t"
  
  In terms of everyday use, there's not a whole lot of difference in the terms "sh*t" and "jack sh*t", and both are interchangeable.

So far we've been talking abount reading in the Community Center. Now what about writing?

If You are from South America, Asia, Greenland or whereever You may come from, don't be shy to write in this community center of ours. I have never seen anybody making a remark about someone elses english being poor. This really never happened. If You don't get something, look it up and if that is not enough, ask the Person who wrote it.

You may end up with a new CC-friend in Ireland or in Australia.

Schöne Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr.

[Stephanie]

Great topic @Ute42 !

It's something we do at work too as we have Community managers for each of the different language CC's here at Airbnb. As I'm native British and studied English language, I revel in the chances to share some of our phrases and expressions. 

Here's some of my top phrases shared recently:

- putting the cart before the horse

- like the pot calling the kettle black

- the lipstick on the pig

- you can put that where the sun doesn't shine

I can explain what they mean but it'd be interesting to see what you think they mean!

Thanks

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Stephanie 

ok, I'll try ..

- putting the cart before the horse

It's when our guests ask us for WIFI password before we have time explaining them the keys

- like the pot calling the kettle black

it's when our guests rate us poorly for communication while they were unreachable by phone and don't speak English 😛

- the lipstick on the pig

When your home is a dump but you hung a new curtains

- you can put that where the sun doesn't shine

stick it in your arse? 🙂

Am I good? Am I good? May I sit down? 🙂

[Susan17]

LOL! Brilliant, @Branka-and-Silvia0 ! 5 Gold Stars for you! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Stephanie]

@Susan17 , @Branka-and-Silvia0  get's learner of the week!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Ute42 @Susan17 @Stephanie 

ok, I have one for you (translated from Croatian) 🙂

Throwing pearls in front of the pigs.

[Stephanie]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  Erm.... wasting good/fancy things on people that are happy with anything? Or maybe, tempting fate by using good stuff on people that are gonna trash it?

Here's a favourite of our Italian CM @Francesca - "what a palaver!"

Thanks

[Sarah977]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  We have the same expression n English- "Pearls before swine."

[Francesca]

We say that in Italian too. I think it is an anecdote from the Bible... @Branka-and-Silvia0 

thanks a lot @Stephanie you know I love the “word of the day” 🙂 

[Ute42]

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@Branka-and-Silvia0, @Sarah977 , @Francesca, @Stephanie 

We have the exact same expression in Germany:

"Perlen vor die Säue werfen"

Perlen = pearls

vor = in front of

Säue = pigs

werfen = to throw

[Robin4]

@Branka-and-Silvia0 

This is great, I can see us changing the world here Branka.

Every now and then someone will come to me with an outrageous proposal and I just say to them ...."I would rather piss up a rope than try that one on"!!

When someone asks the impossible of me,  I just say ....."Jeez John, do you really expect me to be a 'pick pocket' in a nudist camp!"

We here in Australia are partial to meat pies. We eat them out of a paper bag, or on a plate with tomato sauce, or even in a bowl swimming in pea soup (A Pie Floater).

Terribly sexist but if a couple of guys pass by a singularly unattractive female the expression to each other will be "She's got a head like a dropped pie" !!!!!!

When someone continuously changes their mind I say they are...."Up and down like a toilet seat at a mixed party"!

And of course the one I use here at times when an offer is suddenly withdrawn , I simply say ..."It disappeared faster than a cream bun at a fat ladies party!" 

I know, all terrible expressions but they are part of the fabric of our language !

And no doubt all other languages have similar expressions!

Cheers......Rob

[J-Renato0]

@Sarah977

You are among the community members that to me is worth reading... Anyway I do not like what you have just said, and I am taking the liberty of replying to your post.
I have nothing to do with Mexicans and my ancestors came from Europe.
As what I have said in another post, I have hosted few guests from Mexico, and my experience with them it was normal or good. I have to say that I have never been in Mexico as well. It is in my plans for some future travel... Maya pyramids, beautiful beachs...
About the "It brokes" thing... What I have to say is... The worst Airbnb guest that I have had, came from Canada, by chance it is from your country!!!
To summarize - The old crazy boozy man broke the sliding door of a shower box and (what a nerve) said it broke by itself! No sooner he arrived, after the first night in the apartment he phoned me to report the broken glass. Well, he was somewhat drunk, there was a half empty bottle of whiskey on the table.... and lots of beer cans spread in the room.. not to say that later on he would have an argument with the supervisor of the building because he was returning every night drunk as a skunk in the company of prostitutes... (there are more details... but so far it is enough)
Well... believe you me I am not a defensor of any country or any culture... but I think that it is impossible to say that all people from same country has the same behaviour.
I am not going to say that all Canadians are troublemaker becouse of that guest. Actually my experience with Canadians are good.
Well, I am not going to say that all guests from Canada does not assume reponsability for its dirty deeds.
When I used to receive bookings from T. Avisor, I had a guest from H E L L that was from London, and he said he was an English. To me it sounded stranger because of his accent... He broke the shower and complained about lots of things to force me to return the money to him. He was a son of a bleep and I decided to return the money at once to get rid off him. Before he left the apartment, I said to him that by his accent I thought he was not an English man. At once, he said... No I am not. I am a Canadian living in London and I am pround of my country.
My answer... Oh really, I think neither England nor Canada are pround of you! You give a bad name to your country and the city where you live in.
Well, he was a rotten apple from Canda that it was living in London.
It is not because I came across to some impolite person from another country that I will label all citizen of the country as guests that has bad character.
I have to say that, 99,999999% percent of the guests from England are very good guests. They are among the best guests I have had.
I can also assure that, 99,888888% of the Canadian guests are also great guests. You can see that the difference is minimal !
The Canadians are also great guests! I was just traumatized! 
However recently I hosted 2 lovely sisters from the french part of Canada! I gave them 5 thousand stars!
Any good guest can came back any time, from any country.

[Sarah977]

@J-Renato0  I'm sorry, but I think you misunderstood me somewhat. I was talking about language and how it reflects attitudes. I wasn't talking about Airbnb guests from other countries, or saying that everyone from a certain place acts the same way or that we can make generalizations about a culture we really know nothing about, based on the few people we happened to have met from that culture.

But I have lived in Mexico for about 17 years and I'm not the only one who can tell you that the majority of people here have an aversion to admitting responsibility. I have had discussions with Mexican friends about this and they have confirmed that it is an attitude that is not just prevalent in the area I live (I asked if that might be so), but is very ingrained in the culture and crosses all socio-economic boundaries. They gave me some reasons that might explain how this attitude develops, which I won't go into here. 

Of course, there are people here who don't act like this, but the vast majority, in my experience, as well as the experience of others, do.

This is not some racist, judgemental thing on my part, just an observation and confirmed by Mexican friends. It's like having an understanding that some cultures are polite to a fault, some can be abrupt, or it being perfectly acceptable social behavior for a man to give a woman he's just been introduced to a peck on the cheek, where in other cultures it is seen as sexist and unwelcome.

[J-Renato0]

Hey @Sarah977  I did not misunderstood you!
Actually I was talking about language and it came to country and culture.
Anyway I do not agree that languages reflects attitudes.
From my point of view It is the culture that may reflects attitudes, not the language.

Can you imagine if @Ute42  learned on how to speak turkish? I do not believe that she would have to eat kebab every day, although it is a tasteful dish!  🙂

Defnitely I think you are are not racist. First of all because I think that there is not a Mexican race. Secondly because, as you have said, you have been living in Mexico for 17 years, so probably you love their culture, their food, burritos, viva mexico song and the mariachi and everything that has to do with Mexico.
Sorry if I didn't express myself well . I am fond of your posts!  🙂

[Ute42]

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@Stephanie,  @Sarah977,  @J-Renato0, @Susan17 , @Branka-and-Silvia0, @Robin4 ,  

@Helen350, @Clara116 ,  @Helen427 ,  @Miloud0 

Thanks to all of You for Your contribition.

I'm sick and I'm lying in bed. Nothing serious. I'll be back soon

Ute

[Stephanie]

@Ute42 wishing you a speedy recovery!