Quite

I had a conversation yesterday about the use of the word 'quite'. Apparently, when North Americans use the word its definition is a sense of fulfilling whatever it qualifies i.e. "quite chuffed" means 'having reached the state of chuffedness'. The more I have thought about how the British use it, the more confused I am! We use it to mean fairly or middling most of the time but I think we also use it in a peculiarly British way! That is, we use it so as not too be too extreme in what we are saying as in "that was quite loud". That probably means it was loud but we can't say that because we might sound excessive. "I was quite good..." probably means 'I was good' but we can't possibly blow our own trumpet.

On another note, Rose asked if she could have some more "lemon meringue utang pie" tonight which made us smile.