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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beleriphon" data-source="post: 7940247" data-attributes="member: 27847">Probably, but I think it's a very colloquial usage. That is to say used in a way that doesn't literally mean what the word means. Nuit blanche is a colloquial French term for a sleepless night, but literally translated it is white night. Just like cool, to describe somethings ephemeric qualities of being good has nothing to do with its thermal properties.I'm sure if if Winston Churchill ever gave a speech about the dire situation the country was in nobody would take it to mean mundanely bad like a TV show being not very good. I also suspect, as other have suggested, is that dire in the UK being mundanely bad is relatively recent.In North American usage we tend towards the bad, as in catastrophically bad, usage of dire. That isn't bigger or better, its bigger and more horrible that the normal version version. I'd never describe an improvement on the previous generation of sports car as a Dire Corvette for example (although I want to see that as a D&D monster now that I've thought of it).</blockquote>