Re: [Debconf-discuss] [OT] Can you repeat, please? (was Re: Thank you, organizers and volunteers and everyone)
On 10 August 2010 19:26, Luca Capello <luca@pca.it> wrote:
> Basically, given that I am not an English native speaker, I tend to make
> errors, thus sometime the person in front of me does not understand. I
> found out that she/he replies to me with different expressions, used
> AFAIK without any preference WRT her/his origin.
>
> Until now, I have found three of them: "say what?", "what's that?" and
> "say it again", the first two being a word game Biella, Zack and me
> started the last days after I explained the above to both of them.
"Say what?" definitely sounds US English. I wouldn't use the other two either.
Your basic four UK responses are as follows, in descending order of politeness:
"Pardon?", "Sorry?", "Come again?", "What?".
For bonus points, elaborate:
"I beg your pardon, what did you say?"
"I'm terribly sorry, come again?"
If all else fails, add more self-deprecation and explanation:
"I'm afraid I didn't quite hear, would you mind awfully repeating that please?"
This actually happened to me in New York with someone asking for
money. It seemed somewhat unfair not to give it to them at that point,
after making them repeat themselves so many times.
--
Tim Retout <diocles@debian.org>
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