Not everything in life is fantastic. Not everything makes us feel happy. In today’s post I’ll show you some ways to express dissatisfaction.
Is that all? Is that it?
The questions ‘Is that all?’ and ‘Is that everything?’ express an expectation that something should be bigger, better or of a higher level.
“What did you cook?”
“Chips.”
“Is that all? We’ll be starving.”
“Here’s my homework, Marc.”
“Is that everything?”
“Er, yeah.”
“I asked for two pages! This is only half a page.”
It’s not quite what I had in mind
Sometimes, we express our dissatisfaction in statements rather than questions. These often use negative adverbs.
“Your work is not really fast enough. Could you try to manage your time better?”
“That film is not good enough. I can’t believe I wasted twenty quid at the cinema.”
What a pile of crap!
Sometimes you need to use a metaphor (saying a thing is something else for dramatic or poetic effect). To express dissatisfaction, words for waste are used: trash (mainly American), garbage (American) and rubbish (British).
To be a bit more vulgar words for things you’d find in the toilet are also used (but ought not to be used on business, whether native speakers do or not). Crap, shit, shite (British) and sometimes turd are used.
“Why are you watching this rubbish? Do your homework!”
“You call this music? This is garbage!”
“I’m sick of this computer. What a pile of turd!”