'Enough to be getting on with' - clumsy? (was Re: Umbridge, detention, scars, and plotlines, oh my!. - Clumsy?)

[Karen Barker]

No: HPFGUIDX 126137


Steve/bboyminn:
> > Now to the /clumsiness/. The phrase (something to the effect of),
> > '...enough to be getting on with...' was used just a little too 
> > often for my taste. It may be a very common 'Britishism', but to
> > my American ears, once was enough, but every use after that was 
> > jarring. <snip> 

Lupinlore wrote:
> I expect this is one of those cultural things.  I also am an 
> American and found the "...enough to be getting on with..." to be 
> a curiously colorless expression, conveying little sense of the 
> immensity of the weight on Harry's shoulders.  But, Dumbledore is 
> British, after all, and the expression may well convey something 
> different to British readers.  


As an English person, I think this is a typical example of 
understatement which is a very English/British trait.  Someone will 
casually mention that they 'had a bit of bother with the car' the 
other day, and when you dig into it you discover that actually it 
broke down in the middle of nowhere, their mobile was flat, they had 
to walk miles to the nearest town where the garage was shut and 
essentially spent all day trying to sort it out and it cost them a 
fortune to get it fixed!  I think it's all part of the stiff upper 
lip thing, we generally don't like to make too much of a fuss about 
things and just get on with it as best we can!

Karen