Britpicking please?

[rose_cat]

Hi, all, I'm finishing up a fic and wanted to check some words and terms for appropriateness regarding Britspeak -- specifically, whether Tenth Doctor would say/think them, or are there better alternatives?

1. "riot" (hilarious, funny)-- as in the phrase, "he's a riot," for example going with "right laugh"
2. "hilarious"
3. "in a nutshell" (essentially)
4. "clear-cut" (obvious) I'm going with "clear," the phrase in question being "the choice is clear."  Does that sound OK?
5. "over and done with"

1  (guess not) and 5 actually sound like Britspeak to me ... opinions, please?

(Crossposting to dw_britglish)

Thanks for all the helpful responses! I'm going to post the fic now. If I can make it work this time, that is }:(

Comments

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

They all sound fine apart from 1 - maybe "he's a right laugh"?

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was fast! Thanks! :)

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

Another suggestion, very colloquial British, "He's a laugh a minute."

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) I'm going with "right laugh," although I like your suggestion. ("Right laugh" sounds better to me in the actual fic sentence.)

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't use four - I'd just say obvious, obviously ;)

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) "Obvious" doesn't feel quite right, but "clear" seems to work fine, the full phrase being "the choice is clear."

[selenityshiroi.livejournal.com]

4 is the one bugging me (it's even pronounced in my head with an American accent!).

But I also agree with doyle_sb4. 'He's a right laugh' sound better than 'riot'.

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

And thank you as well :) I'm going with "clear," if that sounds OK(and edited the post to reflect that). "Clear-cut" sounds more like what irresponsible loggers do to forests, doesn't it?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

"It's a clear choice" sounds more natural than "the choice is clear" - not sure whether that's a British thing or just spoken versus more written-sounding.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

All five of those look fine to me. (As does your original "clear cut" version of number 4.

[eva-santoori.livejournal.com]

All sounds totally fine to me =)

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And I love your icon :)

[becky-da-wolf.livejournal.com]

If you're going for Ten then:

#1 sounds incredibly middle class to me. My suggestion would be "he's a laugh" but then that's not very Ten.
#2, #4 and #5 sound fine.
#3 doesn't sound quite right for Ten. He's been known to say "basically" in the past.


But feel free to ignore me.

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm keeping "in a nutshell," as it just seems to work better in the actual sentence. (Maybe Ten's been reading the Galactic Thesaurus? :D )

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Thanks to everyone! To all readers, feel free to keep commenting. I'm going to start making my own guide for future reference. I've done some Googling, but couldn't find any online guides that were complete enough, so I'll look into American-British dictionaries. (You know, the ones printed on paper? ;) ) If you know a good one, speak up, please!