Educating the Non-English.

Since the garden has been constantly challenging me to keep up with its growth imperative for the past few weeks, the inside of my house has been largely ignored. In consequence, this afternoon I gave my full attention to the bathroom which was looking a bit grotty.

Now, there’s an interesting word which might be unknown to non-native English speakers. It’s an English colloquialism freely used by people of all classes, and means dirty, dishevelled, or sometimes as a derogatory opinion. And there are few, if any, situations where it might be inappropriate. The matter of my unkempt bathroom is a typical example, or it might be used to describe a coffee mug which hasn’t been washed for the last two or three months of daily use (which used to be a habit of mine when I worked in an office. The women used to tut at me and insist on correcting the issue.) Then again, a person of even moderately elevated class might address a peasant like me as ‘you grotty little man.’ It has been known.

So now I’m wondering whether the Chinese have a pictogram approximating to the word ‘grotty.’ I expect they probably do.

The word ‘tatty’ is similar, but is used to describe things which are not only unkempt, but generally cheap and of low quality. (Unless you happen to be from the north of England where ‘tatty’ is a noun synonymous with potato.)

Have you got that?