I've mentioned my nearby branch of WH Smith before. At the moment it has a number of signs in its windows saying

quote:

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Fantastic
Pencil Cases
Available
In Store
NOW

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Ignoring the American phrase "available in store", which would not normally by used by Brits, the juxtaposition of "fantastic" and "pencil cases" is not one that would occur to many people. A pencil case is, after all, a pretty down-to-earth item -- or is it?

Perhaps JRR Tolkien should have written about The Fellowship of the Pencil Case, or Lord Dunsany about The King of Elfland's Pencil Case.

Ignoring the American phrase "available in store",

Nope, purely British. We would say "available in the store." Maybe it's 'Ameri-ish' or 'Brit-ican!'

Not that I think it is right, but here you will find the most mundane things called fantastic. Actually, in looking fantastic up right now, I was surprised by the "strange in form" or "bizarre" definition. I always think of it as the third definion from Dictionary.com, "wonderful or superb."

Maybe they think their pencil cases are bizarre!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

In speaking or writing most Americans, as Kalleh said, would say "available in the store." When something is posted as a sign, however, "excess" words are often dropped, I suppose in the interest of brevity and economy. Insertion of "the" in the sign would have made it a little longer and cost a little more, but it would have read better.

Classified newspaper ads and street signs are two places where messages are really truncated to make them fit the space and budget available. Thus, you get street signs such as SLOW (on one line) KIDS PLAYING (on the next line), when they mean "Slow down! Kids are playing." The sign conveys the meaning with an economy of words and space, though I think an insertion of an exclamation mark after SLOW would be a good idea.

I've also seen places where there's a warning sign with a light that flashes when there's an accident or traffic jam up ahead. The sign reads CAUTION (on one line) and WHEN FLASHING (on the next).

"Fantastic" in the ad was just hype. A pencil case is a mundane thing, but a "fantastic" pencil case sounds like a work of art!

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

As tinman said, I suspect they dropped the "the" for brevity. However, the phrase "available in [the] store" is just not one we would normally use.

I just took a look at the advertised pencil cases, and to my inexpert eye they look pretty ordinary. They were not a patch on those sold here. If I were a 9 year-old girl I'd have probably liked to have one, but...

The SLOW KIDS PLAYING signs are a warning that you only get 5 points for hitting them. It is much harder to hit fast kids, so you get 20 points for them.

I want one of those pencil cases. You are so lucky in America. There is just so much more crap that you can spend money on.

Manings of fantastic, in order:
1: great, brilliant, very good, excellent, ect
2: untrue
3: like something out of Harry Potter

Well, that pencil case looked pretty ordinary to me.

Now, the Barbie case...that was fantastic!

Graham, we've mentioned this here before, but we just wouldn't use "brilliant" in that way. We'd use it to mean "very smart" or "glistening," but I think in the UK you use it to mean "excellent," don't you?

Besides "brilliant" and "fantastic", another synonym for "excellent" here is "fabulous", as in the TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.

Here we'd talk about "a brilliant star", perhaps, or a "brilliant-cut diamond", or maybe "a brilliant mind", but the primary meaning is just "excellent".

<mini-rant>Why is it that everything is polarised nowadays? People, especially the younger ones, use hyperbole far too much. Whereas I didn't like broccoli, kids nowadays hate and loathe it. I wasn't keen on school, but now it is despised,</mini-rant>.

Quote "...People, especially the younger ones, use hyperbole far too much. ..."

I suspect it's a kind of inguistic "inflation". If I want to indicate that a room is crowded it might be accurate to say "There are dozens of people in this room".

But one who wished to tell us that, in his opinion the room was far more than just crowded - it was super-crowded - might say "There are millions of people in this room!"

Franky I prefer the accurate statement but I concede that it doesn't give quite the same impression of overcrowding!

People, especially the younger ones, use hyperbole far too much.

A similar phenomenon in English was the introduction of the use of "very" meaning literally "truly" modify adjectives and punch them up a bit. Another thing I've noticed in both Italian and German spoken colloquial languages is the overuse of diminutive suffixes for a cutsy-familiar connotation.