Transatlantic subtleties: Bold and smart

This looks simple enough. Bold is bold and smart is smart, right? Sure, but that's the problem. You think the person you're talking to understands what you mean, but their definition is a little different, if you're each from opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Let's take smart first. In the US, smart means clever; intelligent with a side of good sense. In the UK and Ireland we understand this, but we also use it to mean cheeky, liable to answer back with a snarky retort. A smart comment in the States is always a good thing, but if you make a smart comment to your teacher in Ireland, you're liable to be in trouble. Thus, Irish children may be admonished not to be smart - not something you'd ever hear from an American parent.

The word smart is one that's close to my heart. My employer in Ireland was a software firm which began its life with a nice acronym for a name. Let's call it ABC Stuff. It was an Irish company but it had offices in Silicon Valley, because this was during the dot-com-boom years and most of our clients were in the US anyway. After a while, somebody decided that we needed a catchier name than ABC if the people in Marketing were to do any good for the people in Sales. (Virtually nobody in Marketing or Sales was in Ireland.) They looked around and noted that the big word in California for the new millennium seemed to be Smart - everyone was introducing smart cards with smart chips for your smart money to make smart transactions. Our company was rebranded as SmartCrowd (let's say).

This sounded fine to the American ears, but when the poor Irish employees were told about the new name, there was more than one snicker in the audience - until we realised that now we'd have to tell people we worked at SmartCrowd, and suffer the inevitable smart comments. (That's the bad sort of smart.)

A few years later we were bought out by another company and the Smart name disappeared, much to everyone's secret relief.

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And then there's bold. In Ireland, it's unequivocally a bad thing to have a bold child. In the US, not so much. It took me a while to notice this.

To the UK/Irish reader, bold means naughty. If your children are giving you smart answers, they're being bold and you'd better send them to bed with no supper. (Bold is also a brand of laundry detergent in Ireland. I have no idea why. It is exempt from this discussion.)

Americans use bold in what I would erstwhile have considered the antiquated meaning of brave, adventuresome - it might come with a slight side of foolhardiness, but mostly it's a good thing, in child or adult.

So be bold, and act smart. Or don't. The choice is yours. The location is all-important.