The language of liking and disliking.

Check out today’s Teatime Titbit: The language of liking and disliking.

What are your likes & dislikes? That’s a question I include in a ‚getting-to-know-you‘ game which I play to break the ice with groups. Everyone knows what they like and dislike and could probably go on about them forerver and a day, but they don’t. Mostly you get some lame answer like “I like footy and dislike dancing“*.

Well, it’s a sentiment but hardly very exciting when you consider all the words/phrases the English language has to talk about this topic.

Now I could use my likes and dislike in terms of English Premier football teams but I guess footy foes would freak out and stop reading. So let’s go for another f-word, which we all care about and can talk about, yep you know what I mean …… FOOD of course. What else were you thinking of?

Anyway, I’m gonna start with my least liked foods and talk about my faves at the end so that at the end of this writing this post I can go and treat myself to it as a reward.

I detest, loathe, hate ‘mushrooms‘ in all shapes and forms, which thankfully also got me out of the magic mushroom phase growing up. I also can’t stand/bear the smell of some tinned fish – 10X yuk!!! Did you know there is also the very formal word ‘to abhor‘, but that is used more for talk about hate something, for example a way of behaving or thinking, especially for moral reasons – I could say “I abhor Manchester United” cos as a Liverpool fan, it would immoral to do anything else than hate Man U. I digress.

Staying with ‘hate’, another card in my game is ‘My pet hate’ or ‘My pet peeve’ (for our American friends. Naturally most participants hurl out a long list of animals you can keep at home and take for a walk every day (excluding spiders). Understandably, they are quite surprised to learn that it actually means “something you particularly dislike.”

A fantastic segue into ‘dislike and don’t like’ – really smelly cheeses. I guess that’s why god tooled us out with a nose and a sense of smell as a method of self-preservation. My motto is: If it smells like sweaty feet, it’s not getting eaten. Now as a contradiction, I don’t mind some of the milder smelling cheeses like Camembert.

Being a food & drink (beer) fan this part of the post could go on forever, but I’ll do my best to limit my likes to 500 – just kidding!

I like bread, pizza, pasta – yep all those carbs, which give you an extra tyre around your belly, if you don’t work out (I‘m taking a break!) and don’t do intermittant fasting (which I do – just my opinion – don’t try it at home, kids).

Keeping on unhealthy stuff, I love/adore crisps in all shapes, sizes and flavours, I really dig ‚Doritos‘ at the moment. I’m really into* Indian food – in fact if I had to choose one food to live off for the rest of my life, it would be CURRIES!!!! Yummy 10X

QOTD. If you had to choose just one style of cuisine to live off for the rest of your life, what would it be?

lame (dürftig), sentiment (Meinung/Gedanke), to consider (erwägen), in terms of (was etw angeht), foe (Feind/Gegner), to freak out (ausfplippen), to treat sb to sth (jdm etw spendieren), reward (Belohnung), to detest (verabscheuen), to loathe (hassen), magic mushroom, (Zauberpilz), growing up (heranwachsend), “I can’t stand/bear“ (etw nicht ausstehen), tinned fish (Fischkonserven), yuk (Igitt), to behave (sich benehmen), to abhor (hassen), to digress (abschweifen), pet hate/peeve’ (Lieblingshassobjekt), participant (Teilnehmer), to hurl out (etw herausschleudern), segue (Übergang), to tool sb up (ausrusten), self-preservation (Selbstschutz), sweaty feet (schweißfüße), contradiction (Widerspruch), “I don’t mind“ (Ich habe nichts gegen), carbs (Kohlenhydrate), belly (Bauch), to work out (trainieren), to do intermittent fasting (periodisches Fasten), to adore (etw über alles lieben), to dig sth (mögen), to be into sth (etw mögen), yummy (lecker)