Surprised?

Published by: tgiuk

Published on: 1 Aug, 2016

I thought I might add something today about the different ways the English express surprise. I thought about this as a friend asked why a place was called ‘Stone the Crows’. It sounds very strange unless you know what the phrase means.

The word ‘I was surprised’ from your manager generally means they are cross with you. They might say ‘I was surprised you said x at a meeeting’ or ‘I was surprised to see that you copied so many people into that email’. It means you haven’t get them in the loop and have got it wrong.

When the English use an expression to express such as the ones below, they generally are expressing an enjoyable surprise, things have turned out much better than expected e.g:

What the Dickens?

Stone the Crows

I am flabbergasted

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