Timeline for What does "small small" mean in Indian English?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
57 events
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| Jun 15, 2020 at 7:40 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| S Jun 23, 2017 at 18:42 | history | bounty ended | herisson | ||
| S Jun 23, 2017 at 18:42 | history | notice removed | herisson | ||
| Jun 17, 2017 at 21:46 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | That's far and away the greatest difference between British and any other English variety I've ever seen or heard of and I very nearly fell for it myself | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 21:27 | comment | added | English Student | @Robbie Goodwin there was a lot of melodrama a month back over the closure and reopening of this question, and how so many users recklessly provided wrong answers through clueless guesswork. John Hamilton's was the most sensible answer which I as an Indian know is correct. To cut a long story short, John Hamilton has finally provided the elusive references that nail it down: please see the latest version of the answer.Now at least 4 people need to downvote the currently leading,incorrect answer and also upvote John Hamilton to the top: this answer is now well deserving of the bounty! | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 21:04 | answer | added | honeybadger | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 20:21 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | did I miss something, or has no-one provided an example of this reflection of usage in many (Indian) subcontinental languages? I would have fallen for the 'ignorant logic' explanation and tried to justify doubling for amplification, being wholly ignorant of the very idea of doubling for plurality. I'd have cited the vintage movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Everyone here with any knowledge of Indian English seems to think we should be looking solely at plurality so why isn't happening? | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 18:44 | history | edited | herisson |
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| S Jun 16, 2017 at 18:39 | history | bounty started | herisson | ||
| S Jun 16, 2017 at 18:39 | history | notice added | herisson | Reward existing answer | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 14:14 | comment | added | John Hamilton | I've edited my answer to include references to books. Please review it. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 14:13 | history | protected | Mitch | ||
| May 25, 2017 at 13:43 | review | Close votes | |||
| May 28, 2017 at 20:00 | |||||
| May 25, 2017 at 13:18 | history | edited | curiousdannii | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
edited title
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| May 24, 2017 at 8:22 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/867294769101365248 | ||
| May 23, 2017 at 17:48 | comment | added | English Student | @OP -- It is good to see, OP, that you have reclaimed your question after reopening, by making an explanatory edit, because this is your question! – It is a very good, interesting question and I like it. You are right to assume that double adjective indicates plural. Please see the answers of John Hamilton and Turab, which are mostly correct. If you like one of them, please accept it! Note: the other answers are inaccurate, irrespective of upvotes. | |
| May 23, 2017 at 17:17 | comment | added | Mitch | @anonymous 'many big mountains'? or just the plural 'big mountains'? Is it oK to say something like 'big big mountain' (with mountain in the singular)? | |
| May 23, 2017 at 17:14 | history | edited | user20865 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 49 characters in body
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| May 23, 2017 at 17:07 | comment | added | Mitch | @anonymous 1) I neither voted to close or to reopen. 2) out of courtesy we were all waiting for you to do the editing. It would help if you could clarify: do you speak Indian English or have you just overheard this? DO you know yourself what 'big big' means: if so can you explain more fully, if not sure, please explicitly ask for the meaning (so we know what to do with all this). | |
| May 23, 2017 at 17:01 | comment | added | Mitch | Now that it's reopened, I have another clarification request, for anybody. Supposing that 'big big' means 'many big', is it right to say that only a few big mountains is said in Indian English as 'small big mountains'? My feeling is that this implies big big should not main 'many big' but rather 'really big'. | |
| May 23, 2017 at 16:49 | history | reopened |
NVZ♦ Chenmunka Glorfindel Mari-Lou A ab2 |
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| S May 23, 2017 at 16:44 | history | suggested | English Student | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Edited the question by adding explanations and examples to clarify the context and better frame the question, prior to submitting for reopening.
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| May 23, 2017 at 16:39 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S May 23, 2017 at 16:44 | |||||
| May 23, 2017 at 15:33 | comment | added | Mitch | Which is to say that if it were reopened without editing, I would be compelled to vote to close. | |
| May 23, 2017 at 13:26 | comment | added | Mitch | There seems to be a small attempt at reopening. I would vote to reopen but only if edits to clarify were made (see above comments). | |
| May 23, 2017 at 11:59 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| May 23, 2017 at 16:53 | |||||
| May 18, 2017 at 22:32 | comment | added | John Hamilton | @slebetman There's no Turkish English. I'm speculating on my few years of work experience as a translator, mainly doing documentaries from Europe and TV Shows from China / Korea (which were in Google Translate form with original scripts alongside to help). | |
| May 18, 2017 at 22:22 | comment | added | slebetman | @JohnHamilton: Do you have it in Turkish or Turkish English? We have duplication of words in Malay which is generally used for plurals but in the case of "small-small" (kecil-kecil) means either very small or the general idea of smallness (which I don't think can be expressed in English in one word, also note that due to Malay influence Manglish/Singlish spell it small-small with a hyphen). You can't base the interpretation of Indian English on Turkish. Maybe you can speculate based on Turkish English (like I can speculate based on Manglish) but we still need the OP to clarify | |
| May 18, 2017 at 17:41 | history | closed |
Spagirl Gary AndyT 1006a herisson |
Needs details or clarity | |
| May 18, 2017 at 17:29 | comment | added | Sinan Ünür | And then there is "haydi ufak ufak kaçalım artık biz" in Turkish which really trips up Google Translate. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 17:23 | comment | added | 1006a | I'm voting to close as "unclear what you're asking". Without more information about the original phrase, there is no way to judge answers here. Most answerers currently are just going off of what the phrase would mean in standard English. But note that, for example, in parts of Africa small small is idiomatic for little by little, and in Turkey, at least, it is idiomatic for many small, so the "intuition" by native speakers of English or other languages that it must mean very small is meaningless. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 17:16 | answer | added | Lance Baker | timeline score: -3 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 16:13 | comment | added | Mitch | The picture given only shows a few very large mountains and a few very small houses (not many of either). So the picture leads me to believe that what is intended is that repetition of an adjective is for emphasis or 'very', not for number. Can you clarify what is the original meaning of 'big big'? Does it mean 'really big mountains' or 'a lot of big mountains'? | |
| May 18, 2017 at 14:05 | comment | added | John Hamilton | I've looked through some articles and I'm absolutely certain that my answer is correct. I've also done translation work and even though I never encountered this exact situation, I've had to look for Chinese words and see how they were used more than a few times. You don't want to use "tiny little" or "teeny tiny" where this expression was used. That'd just look funny. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 13:29 | answer | added | user1359 | timeline score: -4 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 13:08 | comment | added | 1006a | Examples I am finding in Indian media strongly suggest that the OP is correct that this phrase is about numerosity of small things, not magnitude of smallness. For example, the groom in this story does not mean that teeny tiny things went wrong with his wedding, but rather that many problems that should have been small arose. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 12:53 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| May 18, 2017 at 13:32 | |||||
| May 18, 2017 at 12:25 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| May 18, 2017 at 12:44 | |||||
| May 18, 2017 at 12:19 | answer | added | Ceraroon | timeline score: -4 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 12:06 | answer | added | Turab | timeline score: 3 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 11:00 | comment | added | Chris H | @JanusBahsJacquet LOL but too modern for me | |
| May 18, 2017 at 10:02 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @ChrisH Another idiomatic, but quite recent, way of saying it would be “So beauty. Much mountain. Very wow. I can’t even.” | |
| May 18, 2017 at 9:04 | answer | added | ProfDFrancis | timeline score: 17 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 8:48 | comment | added | Gary | Repetition often serves to magnify. My guess, and it is a guess, as the question isn't completely clear... is that 'small small' in whatever foreign language you heard its equivalent use is a magnification of small. In which case I would suggest 'very small' for an English equivalent. However as the question stands it is too open to opinion and ambiguous to support any definitive answer. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 8:09 | answer | added | BoldBen | timeline score: -1 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 8:08 | review | Close votes | |||
| May 18, 2017 at 17:43 | |||||
| May 18, 2017 at 7:56 | comment | added | Chris H | By the way "That was so much beautiful, I can't tell", is very much Indian English. A more British but very close version would be something like "It was so beautiful, I can't even begin to describe it" (which would then be followed by the description of course). | |
| May 18, 2017 at 7:16 | comment | added | Ian | I think "big big" could stand opposed to "regular big". So a there are big mountains, but also even bigger ("big big") ones. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 7:03 | comment | added | John Hamilton | We have this sort of expression in Turkish, it is supposed to emphasize plurality rather than the adjective. I've written an answer taking that into account. @slebetman | |
| May 18, 2017 at 7:00 | answer | added | John Hamilton | timeline score: 23 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 6:32 | comment | added | slebetman | Does "small small" mean many small things or very small things or slightly smaller than small but slightly bigger than too small? | |
| May 18, 2017 at 6:29 | comment | added | MSalters | @Xanne: From the tag, I'd infer from the (Indian) subcontinent. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 6:20 | comment | added | Xanne | BTW, what's a subcontinental language? | |
| May 18, 2017 at 6:17 | comment | added | Xanne | Small small might be expressed in English as teeny-tiny, although I doubt that's in any dictionary. | |
| May 18, 2017 at 5:23 | answer | added | Javed Ahmed | timeline score: 13 | |
| May 18, 2017 at 5:19 | comment | added | herisson | It's hard to say how to express it in standard English based on this explanation, because you seem to be uncertain about what it means in the first place! | |
| May 18, 2017 at 5:10 | history | asked | user20865 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |