{"id":1680,"date":"2022-05-09T07:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T07:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2022-05-01T13:11:14","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T13:11:14","slug":"what-does-ish-mean-in-british-slang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/what-does-ish-mean-in-british-slang\/","title":{"rendered":"What does &#8220;Ish&#8221; mean in British Slang?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?episode_id=49613575&amp;theme=light&amp;playlist=false&amp;playlist-continuous=false&amp;autoplay=false&amp;live-autoplay=false&amp;chapters-image=true&amp;episode_image_position=right&amp;hide-logo=false&amp;hide-likes=false&amp;hide-comments=false&amp;hide-sharing=false&amp;hide-download=false&amp;color=eb144c\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>After a long day at work my partner always asks how I am feeling. I usually reply with one of the two:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>hungry-ish or tired-ish.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So what does this &#8216;ish\u2019&#8217; mean? Do I need to eat or go to bed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Ish spelt I-S-H is an informal suffix used to say about or approximately. This informal suffix can be added to many words including numbers or times of the day. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>How old is she?<\/li><li>Umm 40ish\u2026<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>or<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>What time will you be at home?\u2019<\/li><li>Around 2ish\u2026<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also use ish with gradable adjectives. A gradable adjective is one that can have different levels of intensity. An example of a gradable adjective is hot, so you can be a bit hot, fairly hot or hot ish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For centuries now, &#8220;ish&#8221; has been rather promiscuous in English. In 1894 in an article from The Daily News, a London newspaper of which Charles Dickens was briefly the editor! We can find an example of ish being used while describing a house, they wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Some huge pile of building, generally much more Queen Anne-ish than the houses of Queen Anne\u2019s own time.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here the building was being described as similar to the style of Queen Anne but not the same, hence the use of ish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nowadays ish can be used, not only as a suffix but alone, in this sense ish means more or less the same thing: kind of, thereabouts, in a way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As described by the linguist Stefanie Kuzmack, ish refers back to a particular idea. So we have a breakaway from a suffix to a stand-alone word. So instead of simply adding ish to an adjective, I am coldish. It can be used alone:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Are you cold?<\/li><li>Yeah, ish.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So how are you feeling? Hungry-ish? Tired-ish? English-ish? Let us know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the end of our episode so remember to tune in for our next episode to see what new slang we have in store for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can find us on our website <a href=\"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\">https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com<\/a> and from there you can see our transcript and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many more apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or head over to our facebook page <a href=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/theslangpodcast\">https:\/\/facebook.com\/theslangpodcast<\/a> or instagram for updates and more slang!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a long day at work my partner always asks how I am feeling. I usually reply with one of the two: hungry-ish or tired-ish. So what does this &#8216;ish\u2019&#8217; mean? Do I need to eat or go to bed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theslangpodcast.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}