How to say no.
How to say no, that’s a basic complicated question.
At first sight saying no is pretty simple. Two plain letters, one consonant bringing along a vowel. What round a vowel!
It’s seemingly trivial a word but in fact it’s a trick issue. There are quite a few manners to say it, there are a lot of so-called synonyms.
Were you, like me, a French speaking person trying to speak English, you’d have to deal with more than one problem.
For example, a wife to her French husband: “Ah non, pas comme çà !â€
but the same wife to her British lover would say: ‘Oh no, not so!’
Only round ‘o’s suit to British affairs.
The English instinctively admire any woman who has the talent to start with: ‘Oh no, not so!’
because they know it's going on this way:
Oh no, not so! Don’t touch me!
No, don’t touch me!
Don’t touch!
Don’t!
Do!
Please, do!
Do so!
To evade the difficulty, you could simply say nothing but just move your head from right to left and from left to right. I guess Levi-Strauss could say more about that archetypal gesture. However I’d check out if Horatio who’s been raised in the jungle don’t express the negation by nodding.
Anyway I’d be very grateful to GGusers who would be so kind as to teaching me more about how I have to say no.
At first sight saying no is pretty simple. Two plain letters, one consonant bringing along a vowel. What round a vowel!
It’s seemingly trivial a word but in fact it’s a trick issue. There are quite a few manners to say it, there are a lot of so-called synonyms.
Were you, like me, a French speaking person trying to speak English, you’d have to deal with more than one problem.
For example, a wife to her French husband: “Ah non, pas comme çà !â€
but the same wife to her British lover would say: ‘Oh no, not so!’
Only round ‘o’s suit to British affairs.
The English instinctively admire any woman who has the talent to start with: ‘Oh no, not so!’
because they know it's going on this way:
Oh no, not so! Don’t touch me!
No, don’t touch me!
Don’t touch!
Don’t!
Do!
Please, do!
Do so!
To evade the difficulty, you could simply say nothing but just move your head from right to left and from left to right. I guess Levi-Strauss could say more about that archetypal gesture. However I’d check out if Horatio who’s been raised in the jungle don’t express the negation by nodding.
Anyway I’d be very grateful to GGusers who would be so kind as to teaching me more about how I have to say no.
Posts: 2715
16 May 2007