Teacher Discussion Forums

'Awesome' seems to be used in the meaning of 'very good' in the US.
I wonder if there is any similar informal word in BrE.
Thank you.

LDOCE4 online:

awesome
1 extremely impressive, serious, or difficult so that you feel great respect, worry, or fear:
an awesome responsibility
the awesome sweep of the scenery
2 especially American English informal very good:
Their last concert was really awesome.

Now of course, there are informal words in BrE (not that BrE speakers, especially the younger, wouldn't ever use 'awesome' themselves - see above italics), and one way to find out what those words or phrases might be (other than straight away posting on Dave's!) would be to consult and/or buy a good thesaurus (e.g. the (New) Oxford Thesaurus of English, or its Concise or Paperback spinoffs), and how about the Longman Language Activator!

Itasan, you seem to be now going through the dictionary (presumably the LDOCE4) and querying every apparent difference between American and British English that you come across (re. your recent order of "threads": audiotypist; audit; auditorium; avenue; awesome). I know it's frustrating that the dictionary doesn't always list exact equivalents and instead makes do with (what must seem to you to be) a vague "definitionese", but could this perhaps be because there maybe aren't exact (i.e. universally agreed) equivalents to be had in some if not most of these "vexing" instances (as opposed to say, 'lift' versus 'elevator', 'bonnet' versus 'hood', 'boot' versus 'trunk' etc, where 99% of respondents would be able to give the accepted "translation" without too much difficulty); that is, there may be a variety of terms that could do the job of the e.g. AmE word or phrase, which it is not a dictionary's job to exhaustively list (although it perhaps should be, especially now there are CD-ROMs, with their increased storage capacity and automated "jump" functions).

If you're working on a new type of "exhaustive" dictionary then by all means continue posting, but just be aware that it will be slow process going through Dave's, and that the growing "irregularity" of responses will no doubt leave your notes full of holes. But do tell us if you notice what seem to be genuine "gaps" in either variety's lexicons.

>>I know it's frustrating that the dictionary doesn't always list exact equivalents and instead makes do with (what must seem to you to be) a vague "definitionese", but could this perhaps be because there maybe aren't exact (i.e. universally agreed) equivalents to be had in some if not most of these "vexing" instances (as opposed to say, 'lift' versus 'elevator', 'bonnet' versus 'hood', 'boot' versus 'trunk' etc, where 99% of respondents would be able to give the accepted "translation" without too much difficulty); that is, there may be a variety of terms that could do the job of the e.g. AmE word or phrase, which it is not a dictionary's job to exhaustively list (although it perhaps should be, especially now there are CD-ROMs, with their increased storage capacity and automated "jump" functions). <<
It is exactly the reason why I'm asking each native speaker's opinion. If it's not appropriate here, let me know, I am ready to stop my posts. I'm not blaming any conscientious dictionaries. There are limits to anything. I just want to know the reality, not only the definitions in dictionaries. I'd like to have native speakers' instinctive opinions.
Thanks.

I'm not saying stop posting, Itasan (although I would again suggest that you create threads with more general titles e.g. 'Differences between AmE and BrE', and then confine any related posts to the one thread); no, what I am saying is that you might not get many replies to your (many! Disorganized!) posts, and that you would appear to be in need of buying more reference works (such as those I've already mentioned) and utilizing/trusting the information available in them more than you seem to be doing at present. But there may be some (you would seem to prefer NS) teachers on Dave's who have nothing better to do than to help you with your each and every query (unfortunately, however, I am not one of them ).

Then, there is the fact that many words simply aren't necessary to know, and will be best learnt in context (and who can possibly know whether an alternative term might not be used in that context. For example, a specific "auditorium" - what might look like an auditorium, inside, at any rate - might, even in America, be called e.g. 'Itasan Hall', might it not? And it could presumably be an individual building or part of a complex etc).

One way to get a feel for whatever differences might exist is visually, via Google Image searches (you can also see at a glance the probable nationality of the poster/user, from the URL).

Awesome (US) has various variants in the UK, depending on age and area. For instance, "wicked" has been/is used, as is awesome. Styles change, "bogus" used to mean bad, but now that has been replaced by "pants"!
Sometimes, especially for my Italian students, it's hard enough to learn English, so I find mentioning very few of the different English expressions (I use southeastern UK English, as that's where I'm from) is better and easier!

Thank you very much, itim, for the very valuable information. I don't mean to teach various kinds of slang expressions to students, but those are really valuable to me. BrE/AmE differences.