[MD] Precious ?

[Jan-Anders Andersson]

Hi 

Someone misread the word pretentious to be precious?

"My pretentious! Oh, you stole my Picky! Gollum! Gollum!"

Beast regards

Jan-Anders

20 jan 2012 kl. 23.11 skrev moq_discuss-request at lists.moqtalk.org:

> Horse said:
> 
> Perhaps a good example of the quote: ?Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language.?
> 
> Because...  Ian Glendinning wrote:
> ..I was talking about the sense of someone "being precious ... about something".  [Ian's original question]  = does the English use of the word "precious" translate into US / abroad? As in one person describing another as being "precious" or "precious about X"? "Precious about X-thing" I don't recall reading or hearing here. The phrase "He/she is so precious" is occasionally used, usually by doting mothers or grandmothers to refer their young children meaning something like "precociously endearing"
> 
> dmb says:
> What you've probably encountered is a sarcastic kind of slang. It means the person is being too picky, too fussy or taking themselves too seriously. I once heard someone insult Boulder, Colorado by saying, "it's a little too precious." It can also be used in a condescending way, wherein you say "isn't that precious?" in the same way you'd say it to a three year-old child. It's a sarcastic way of mocking self-importance or some other misplacement of values.