"Did you get a little today?"

[GoodTaste]

Some Chinese said in greeting an American: "Did you get a little today?"
Is the sentence appropriate in English? Do you native English speakers understand it? What he meant is "Did you have a little break today?" or "Did you have a break today?".

 

[probus]

Without more context, it would leave me scratching my head as to its meaning.

 

[emsr2d2]

It definitely doesn't mean "Did you have a little break today?" My immediate thought was that it referred to sex! In BrE, in casual chat, saying "I got some last night" or "Did you get yourself a bit?" refer to having sex. I thought maybe you were trying to ask if the person had had sex today. If that's not the meaning (bearing in mind that it would be an unusual way of asking that), then it means nothing at all.

The other problem is that you suggested it could be used as a greeting. That doesn't make sense. Greetings are things like "Hello/Good morning/Hi" and maybe "How are you?" but asking anyone whether they've had a little break today on first meeting them would be really weird.

 

[Barque]

My initial reaction was the same as emsr2d2's and I was picturing your friend asking that question with a grin and a wink.

If you'd met him the day before and he'd told you he hadn't been getting enough time for coffee breaks or a lunch break, you could possibly ask him "Did you get a break today?" But that would require a specific context.

 

[emsr2d2]

I have no idea why the speaker thought they could omit the most important word of the sentence - "break". That's like me saying to someone "Do you have a small?" and expecting them to know that I meant "Do you have a small dog?"

 

[Ms. Worth]

Some Chinese said in greeting an American: "Did you get a little today?"
Is the sentence appropriate in English? Do you native English speakers understand it? What he meant is "Did you have a little break today?" or "Did you have a break today?".

Without context, this would be widely understood to mean "Did you have a little sex today?"
It's pretty inappropriate in a work setting, and not too good even among friends at a bar.

Probably brothers or very close friends could say this without sounding too weird, but even then it would most likely be understood as "joshing."

I've never known it said between women. This is a man-to-man remark.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've never known it said between women. This is a man-to-man remark.

I would agree if talking about my peer group, but the under-30s have a very different attitude to sex these days and I've definitely heard it used amongst women in that age group.

 

[Tdol]

How did the American react?

 

[Amigos4]

How did the American react?

What a silly question, Tdol. You already know the answer. The American, of course, responded by exaggerating the level of his sexual prowess! To him, anything above zero is a success!