sweet water.

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Yoong Liat

#535260 Tue, 01 Jul 08 05:54 PM

Hi New2grammar and Khoff

When Singaporeans ask for water in a restaurant, they use the term pain water. Plain water may, nevertheless, have ice in it.

Standard English speakers would simply ask for water.

(Singapore English in a Nutshell by Adam Brown)

The author is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts of the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He has taught at universities in Britain,Thailand and Malaysia. He holds a doctorate in phonetics frrom the University of Edinburgh, and has written widely on lingustics and English language teaching.

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (5,861)

Yoong Liat

Grammar, Phonetics, Universities

New2grammar

#535266 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:00 PM

I agree with you that in normal context, we would say water. However, when you want to emphasize that the water is non-carbonated or other types of water, you may want to use plain to separate it from other categories of water, which is what I wanted to achive in my original question. I see it as Chinese vs the chinese (not the Italian)

New2grammar

Joined on Tue, Nov 21 2006

Veteran Member (7,670)

Who wants to go sailing around the world with me?

optilang

#535269 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:03 PM

Results 11 - 20 of about 793,000 for "plain water". (0.17 seconds)

I see nothing wrong with the term. Very often, when people ask if the drink I have is vodka, I reply "No, it's just plain water!" (Honestly, that's all I drink) Big Smile

optilang

Joined on Tue, May 13 2008

Poland

Senior Member (2,100)

OptiNative British English Speaker Wherever I may roam, I'm still a Londoner.

CalifJim

#535270 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:06 PM

New2grammar
A native speaker described plain drinking water as sweet. What does sweet mean?

Somewhat unrelated to your context, water throughout the earth is divided into salt water and fresh water. An alternate name for fresh water, and I believe it's chiefly British, is sweet water.

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (16,549)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

Grammar

Yoong Liat

#535272 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:07 PM

New2grammar
achive

I think the usage of 'plain water' has become too widespread to be labelled as incorrect.

I think you wanted to type 'achieve'. I think it's a typo.

Best wishes.

Yoong Liat

Grammar

New2grammar

#535273 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:07 PM

HAHA... but your breath gives you away.

New2grammar

khoff

#535297 Tue, 01 Jul 08 06:57 PM

This thread reminds me of a time many, many years ago when my sister and I were in England. We requested water in a restaurant and the waiter could not understand what we wanted Embarrassed because of our American accents. It took several repetitions and more than one waiter before they realized what we were asking for.

khoff

Joined on Sun, Mar 6 2005

Denver, Colorado, USA, Earth

Senior Member (2,520)

Native speaker of American English (but not a grammar expert)

Accents, American accents

New2grammar

#535303 Tue, 01 Jul 08 07:02 PM

CJ, finally, I get a satisfactory answer!.

Yoong Liat, thanks. It was a typo.

Khoff, you could have spelled it out. :) I agree. Accent is a difficult thing. I once had a problem understanding an American from Kentucky. Her accent sounded funny to me.

New2grammar

Accents

Tanit

#535310 Tue, 01 Jul 08 07:16 PM

"Plain water" aside, another term I encountered in the UK as opposed to "sparkling water" was "still water".

Some examples from the UK:

"Product withdrawal of Dasani bottled still water" (source)
"Still water outsells cola" (source)
"Still water in Drinks & Juices" (source)