English term
round robins
child into becoming something other than its true destiny. But
no, that unpleasantness is inherent and will probably pop up in
the next generation as well.’
‘So you raised a bad potato, too?’ asked Maddie, her relief
palpable. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody else who admitted
that. Normally people are falling over themselves to tell you
how great and accomplished their children are. You read some
of the round robins I get at Christmas and you’d think they were
handing out Nobel Peace Prizes like Smarties.’
I'm a bit confused about the last sentence. What are the "round robins" in this context, and who's handing out the Nobel Peace Prizes? This is British English.
| 5 +9 | Christmas circulars |
philgoddard
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| 4 | chats that circulate among groups of friends |
David Hollywood
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| round robins |
Rachel Fell
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Jan 30, 2019 10:05: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): philgoddard, Edith Kelly, Yvonne Gallagher
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Responses
United States
Six languages into flawless English
Native in: English
Works in: German to English, French to English, Spanish to English, and 4 more.
Christmas circulars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_letter
Handing out Nobel peace prizes like Smarties: Smarties are British candies, like M&Ms. Handing things out like Smarties means giving them away in large numbers. In this case, it means that if all these boastful Christmas letters are to be believed, all of the writers' children are so clever that they deserve Nobel prizes.
(I do think you could have Googled this, by the way.)
| agree |
Sarah Bessioud
5 hrs
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| agree |
Edith Kelly
6 hrs
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| agree |
Jack Doughty
6 hrs
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| agree |
kmtext
9 hrs
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| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
10 hrs
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| agree |
Christine Andersen
11 hrs
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| agree |
Thayenga
: :)
12 hrs
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| agree |
British Diana
: of course googling would have helped. Allowing "true Brits" to explain is much more fun
2 days 9 hrs
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| agree |
jccantrell
: Yeah, in the USA, we just call it a Christmas newsletter. 'Round robin' is used here more for a type of tournament, kind of like the group stages in World Cup soccer.
2 days 17 hrs
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worked for int. orgs (IMF, OAS, IDB)
Native in: English
Works in: Spanish to English, German to English
chats that circulate among groups of friends
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Note added at 1 hr (2019-01-30 00:41:45 GMT)
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expecting to get a reply
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Note added at 1 hr (2019-01-30 00:43:11 GMT)
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has been translated to sport too...
a competition in which every player or team plays once against every other player or team.
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Note added at 1 hr (2019-01-30 00:44:27 GMT)
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but in your context it means chats in which everybody is involved and replies
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Note added at 1 hr (2019-01-30 00:45:46 GMT)
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this is not Christmas-specific
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Note added at 1 hr (2019-01-30 00:46:52 GMT)
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just a friendly way of reciprocal communicating
Reference comments
United Kingdom
Thorough, knowledgeable and resourceful
Native in: English (Variant: UK) 
Works in: French to English, Spanish to English, Italian to English, and 4 more.
round robins
a letter that you send to a lot of people, for example at Christmas,
telling them what you have done that year
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/round-ro...
| agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
19 hrs
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Thank you Tinà :-)
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| agree |
katsy
1 day 17 hrs
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Thank you katsy :-)
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Discussion
I used to get about 10 of these and write one myself, but in recent years people have stopped doing it, partly I think because they have been seen as boasting and partly because people who want to tell the world what they or their children have been doing, do so on Facebook!
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