I try to collect conversation starters so I have things to talk about with people I like.

Some of them are general and work on anyone, like: “I’m moving soon!” or “how was your weekend?” or “did you see that ludicrous display last night?”. Others deal with shared interests or common friends, so they’re person specific.

What’s a word to describe collecting conversation starters? Borrowing from other languages is legit.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    8·
    4 months ago

    did you see that ludicrous display last night?

    is from the IT Crowd (fr/en). I had a friend who started following hockey, specifically to have more to say to her coworkers.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    I got started collecting conversation starters when I heard podcast about it. I can’t remember which podcast, but I’m pretty sure they said Japanese has a word for it. It was something like “neta”. Googling around, I think I see that “neta” could mean collecting joke material.