Busaholic
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Jun 2014
- Messages
- 14,207
The late writer David Nobbs created the Reginald Perrin character so superbly played by Leonard Rossiter when it came to television. In its second incarnation when Perrin had somehow survived his long walk into the sea and become a budding entrepreneur he had two young male proteges, one of whom (Tony) replied 'great' to everything Reggie said, the other (David Harris-Jones iirc) simpering a wet 'super' as back-up! Reggie ran the store 'GROT' which became a runaway success and, in my view, was the inspiration for the later pound stores.Similarly, the American usage of mad to mean 'very angry' is spreading here, taking it away from its original meaning of 'insane, mentally deranged'. At least there are plenty of alternative words in this case, but is it me or is cross in this sense becoming dated?
Another annoyance is super used as an adverb to mean 'very, extremely', as in "I'm super excited about tomorrow". This usage is now commonplace amongst younger Brits.