Written by Vera Donkers
A full stop at the end of your message? Surely not. A thumbs-up? RUDE! And the word ‘fine’… Apparently, it doesn’t get much worse.
And it all started so well. The Dutch word for ‘fine’ is ‘prima’. We borrowed it from Italian around 1868, with the meaning ‘first, finest’. Its roots go back to the Latin primus, meaning ‘first’. In Dutch, it came to mean ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. Quite the compliment. So how did it go from nice work to are you mad at me or what?
Passive-aggressive
VSR devoted a podcast episode to the question: Why does prima feel so passive-aggressive? With columnist Eva Hoeke and linguist Marc van Oostendorp, they explore the word’s changing connotations. And our need to call everything amazing. When everything is ‘fantastic’, ‘incredible’ or ‘really, really good’, ‘fine’ suddenly sounds a lot less fun.
Same word, different feeling
But that doesn’t mean ‘fine’ has suddenly become an insult to everyone. One person still uses it enthusiastically. Another hears: yeah, sure, that’ll do. Put those two people to work together and a well-meant reply can accidentally land the wrong way.
The time you grow up in shapes your language too. You pick up different words, unwritten rules and even messaging habits. Your colleague thinks they’re giving you a huge compliment. All you hear is disappointment. Same ‘fine’, different message.
Generations as a conversation starter
That’s why we use generations as a lens. It gives us a playful way to explore why the same words can land so differently. So whether it’s still perfectly fine to say ‘fine’ to your colleague is something you’ll only find out by talking about it together.
