Lexigame Community

General Category => Words => Topic started by: Katzmeow on June 05, 2020, 01:11:24 PM

Title: Twee not common?
Post by: Katzmeow on June 05, 2020, 01:11:24 PM

Looking at the solution to yesterday's "weathered" game, I was surprised not to see twee amongst the common words. 
Although it's not something I often say out loud because so few people seem to know what I mean and to avoid hurting feelings,  I expected it to be commonly known among Chi participants. It's a word I often use in my own head and said out loud only two days ago.
Curious to know whether others consider it rare or common these days.

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: Jacki on June 05, 2020, 03:23:59 PM

Common

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: mkenuk on June 05, 2020, 04:40:29 PM

Common to me;
I suspect that, once again, it's not known by our transatlantic cousins.

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: 2dognight on June 05, 2020, 05:16:58 PM

Also common to me

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: Valerie on June 05, 2020, 05:20:54 PM

Common to me too.  But I think Mike may be right.  It's very English.

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: TRex on June 06, 2020, 02:53:54 AM

Comparing UK English to US English with the Ngram Viewer (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=twee%3Aeng_gb_2012%2Ctwee%3Aeng_us_2012&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctwee%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctwee%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Ctwee%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctwee%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0) the difference appears to have been minimal until fairly recently. But, when one starts drilling into the time period links, it appears that many of the occurrences of twee are Dutch! Very puzzling.

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: Katzmeow on June 06, 2020, 01:52:49 PM

Glad it's not just me then  ;D

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: Tom44 on June 08, 2020, 01:01:48 PM

I know the word, but twee is not common to me nor to Americans in general.

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: Calilasseia on June 16, 2020, 02:55:54 PM

Another of those words I've deployed several times in puzzles here, and wondered why it's classified as rare ... ;)

Title: Re: Twee not common?
Post by: birdy on June 19, 2020, 06:21:34 AM

I've known the word for many years because of my elevated literary habits: Mills & Boone romances!  What may be interesting is that my English-living-in-America-for-many-years friend had never heard of it - it must have become popular after she left England in the '60s.