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> cheap site (and I mean that in a good way!) I guess English needs different words for the German "Günstig" and "Billig". They both translate to cheap, but "G
by patates 1y ago
> cheap site (and I mean that in a good way!)
I guess English needs different words for the German "Günstig" and "Billig". They both translate to cheap, but "Günstig" means something like cost-effective/affordable (but I guess not quite?), and is positive, while "Billig" is strictly negative.
- thesuitonym 1y agoEnglish already has a lot of words for both meanings. It's more that American culture has designated anything low cost as being of poorer quality.
- PopAlongKid 1y agoHas that changed over time? Nearly fifty years ago, when self-serve gasoline pumping at gas stations was first coming into widespread use, I (native English speaker) was in Germany and remember a slogan I saw at gas stations to promote it: "selbst tanken ist billiger tanken" (sorry if I misspelled/mis-capitalized). So it seems Billig did not have such a negative connotation then.
- echelon 1y agoWe have words for "cheap" that don't carry the pejorative meaning. "Affordable" is the most frequent replacement. There's also "inexpensive".
- anjel 1y agoAffordable can be as euphemistic as it isn't pejorative though.