rubbish
rubbish
rubbish – aggettivo
Work was a bit rubbish today as we had no internet connection.
I’ve been through some pretty rubbish times in my life but now I’m happy.
I am completely rubbish at sewing.
It was a rubbish game, we didn’t deserve to win.
Qualche settimana fa abbiamo parlato del sostantivo genius e della sua recente trasformazione in aggettivo; un altro sostantivo che ha seguito la stessa strada è rubbish, oggi un termine accettabile nell’inglese britannico informale per descrivere qualcosa (o qualcuno) di scadente, scarso. È più attuale di sinonimi quali terrible, awful, dreadful e consente di esprimere la propria delusione nei confronti di qualcosa che si è rivelata al di sotto delle aspettative. In questo è nettamente diverso dall’aggettivo di lunga data rubbishy che significa ‘di cattiva qualità’.
Origini del termine
Mentre il verbo transitivo to rubbish entra nell’inglese britannico intorno agli anni ’50 attraverso lo slang australiano e neozelandese, l’avvento di rubbish come aggettivo è molto più recente.
rubbish
rubbish – adjective
Work was a bit rubbish today as we had no internet connection.
I’ve been through some pretty rubbish times in my life but now I’m happy.
I am completely rubbish at sewing.
It was a rubbish game, we didn’t deserve to win.
A few weeks back I wrote about the way the noun genius has taken on a new life as a fully fledged adjective. Another noun that has followed a similar path is rubbish which in British English is now an acceptable, if informal, way of saying that someone or something is no good. It means the same as words like terrible, awful, dreadful, but with a less dated feel and perhaps an element of disappointment: there is a suggestion that something you expected to be good turned out not to be. It has a distinctly different meaning from the well-established adjective rubbishy, which means of poor quality.
Origins
While rubbish as a verb comes from Australian and New Zealand slang and has been around since the 1950s, rubbish as an adjective is a more recent development.
