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
    14·
    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.

    • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
      11·
      4 months ago

      I joined the office fantasy football league for that same reason. I had heard it was like D&D for jocks, so I figured I could do alright.

      It is not like D&D. I did not do alright.

      It was still fun to be involved in the hype and razzing though. Didn’t join the next year, but I don’t regret playing.

      • HobbitFoot English
        4·
        4 months ago

        It is not like D&D. I did not do alright.

        Yeah. D&D isn’t nerdy enough.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    6·
    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.

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 months ago

    A good conversation-starter is something that you can bond over or that you know to be of interest to the audience that you can reasonably speak to intelligently