"Rate": Britspeak only?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Bet it made you I-rate.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: "Rate": Britspeak only?
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Ha! No sooner had I gotten Wilson's posting about BE "to
low-rate" than I was reading a term paper (for a folklore
class) in which the student referred to jokes that "B-rate"
minority groups. Unlike the complimentary jokes that A-rate
them . . . .

--Charlie

____________________________

>Charlie, your example sentences work for me. And
there's "to low-rate" in BE (and in other dialets?), with
the meaning "to insult."
>
>-Wilson
______________________

>On 5/4/06, Charles Doyle wrote:

>> Although Americans use (or used to use) "rate" in a
similar sense: "The food at this place just doesn't
rate." "You got invited? You must really rate!"
>>
Perhaps also in that "rate/reckon/value" category is "rank,"
as in the sports-page usage: a "ranked" team, meaning
a 'highly-ranked' team.
>>
>> --Charlie

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