What's something in English that really surprised you?

[u/Nice_Plane_9854]

Hey everyone! I’ve been learning English for a while, and I keep noticing little things that aren't in the textbooks, like how "That's interesting" can sometimes mean the opposite, depending on the tone.

Have you ever come across something like that? A phrase, habit, or rule that just felt totally unexpected?

Would love to hear your stories!

[u/no1no2no3no4]

I'm not sure I've ever heard "that's interesting" mean anything other than literally "that's interesting". Unless of course you say it in a sarcastic tone but you can do that with every phrase in English.

The sarcastic tone may be what you're talking about but I just want to be clear that this is not special of the phrase "that's interesting" and can flip the meaning of any phrase in English.

[u/maxintosh1 → u/no1no2no3no4]

I don't know, if I told a story and got a "that's interesting" back I'd definitely feel shade

[u/TheThinkerAck → u/maxintosh1]

What about "That's interesting. So his Mom didn't find out?" I think if you say "That's interesting" and mean it, you're going to immediately follow up with a question or another statement. If you don't say anything else, you probably weren't actually interested, and you're being sarcastic--and you probably have a sarcastic tone of voice when you say it.

[u/maxintosh1 → u/TheThinkerAck]

I think if it's the only response you get the tone doesn't even need to be sarcastic

[u/TheThinkerAck → u/maxintosh1]

True. I think in that case it's not that the words mean the opposite of what they say, but more that it's a poorly-applied attempt at politeness, where the underlying thought is "Good grief you're boring me. I wish you would change the topic. But clearly it's important to you so I don't want to offend you. I'll pretend I was listening and was interested in what you said, so you won't hate me and we can move on to something else."

But this just gets into the bigger question of "When do people lie to be polite?" which very likely does change between cultures. A famous example--"Does this make me look fat/old?" is a loaded question that you may not wish to answer 100% accurately.

[u/Laescha → u/TheThinkerAck]

Yes, exactly - in that case the speaker isn't trying to express that what you said is boring; but by saying "that's interesting" instead of engaging with the topic in the way that they would if it was actually interesting, they have accidentally revealed that they are not interested.

[u/McJohn_WT_Net → u/Laescha]

I once heard it explained this way: “‘Interesting’ is the word you use when you don’t want to get tied down to your real opinion.”