Learning App: Play A Game with Collocation KEEP, PAY, and TAKE

TALKING ABOUT SPORT SCORE

Kebanyakan English learners hanya tahu zero untuk menyatakan nol dalam bahasa Inggris. Padahal ada banyak cara untuk mengucapkan angka nol dalam bahasa Inggris, for example, zip, zilch, nada, nought, nothing, square one, etc. Dari sebegitu banyak padanan kata zero dalam bahasa  Inggris, hanya beberapa saja yang biasa digunakan dalam bidang olah raga.

For football scores we say nil (British English) to mean zero.

• Everton beat Liverpool three - nil (3-0).

• The match ended nil - nil (0-0).

American English uses various words for sports scores.

• The Rams won three - nothing (3-0).

• The game ended three - zip.

If the score in a football match ends with both teams score the same number of goals, we say "a draw".

• Manchester drew one all with Barcelona (1-1).

For tennis scores we say love to mean zero. The word love was derived from the French word l'oeuf which means egg. It sounds like love. The shape of 0 (zero) looks like an egg. So, that's where the term love in tennis came from.

• The score was thirty love (30-0).

British vs. American English: Please

Americans say “please” – just not always where the British expect to hear it, especially when they are ordering food in restaurants.

The British say please when ordering food in restaurants or requesting things in shops because they view the action as a personal request to the waiter. Americans regard this as providing the waiter with the information he needs to do his job, so they say  “I’ll have the chicken”while the British say “I’ll have the chicken, please“.

Why don’t Americans say “please”? Are they rude people? How can it be that Americans think of themselves as polite when they fail to extend this common courtesy word?

Here’s the deal:

Saying “please” can add connotations of impatience and exasperation to an American request.

You can watch this video from Sesame Street. It teaches children lessons about politeness. In this video, you’ll notice Mr. Johnson order food without saying “please”to Grover, the waiter. Mr. Johnson here say “I’d like a bowl of hot alphabet soup” (without “please”, but with a bit of politeness marking by adding “would” in “I’d like”).

So, even though the Americans don’t say “please” when ordering food, that doesn’t mean they are being rude. It’s just a cultural thing. Saying “please” can make a request sound urgent, blunt, and even rude.