In my opinion, you can use savvy in all but the most excrutiatingly formal of language.
Savvy is widely and regularly used.
I’d say it’s mainly used as a moun but can also be used as an adjective. Someone who has “political savvy” is very knowledgeable about politics – including a lot of subtle knowledge/know-how.
Savvy can be used as an adjective or a noun as in:
You’d think he would have had the savvy to realise what to do in those circumstances. Here the word relates to: common sense - know-how - nous or that wonderful word gumption.
As an adjective:
Well, the reason he didn’t realise is that he’s not exactly street savvy. Here the word relates to being aware of what happens in real ife, similar to streetwise.
And of course if you want to go the whole hog, you can always use the expression ‘having the savoir faire to …’, which is after all where the word comes from indicating: knowing what to do in any situation.
Hi Tamara, where did you find the spelling savvey? As far as I know it’s just savvy in both American and British English. Or were you referring to pronunciation?[YSaerTTEW443543]
Strictly entre nous, that word is an absolute newcomer in my vocabulary list. It looked strange at first – I even thought Alan might have misspelled it, and I certainly didn’t pronounce it correctly until I looked it up. My, this language never stops surprising me!
It appears savvy may be mainly used in the US? Hmm… Well, in any case, iin AmE, savvy is used much too often and in too many contexts to be categorized as slang, in my opinion.
To be honest, I’d always thought that savvy had somehow come into English from French (savoir → to know). But I had never researched it – that had just always been my assumption. :shock:
Amy, I like your typos, they also make contribution in my learning process, developing my feeling of English and sometimes inducing me to study a dictionary even more carefully.
Amy, this was not "pointing out your ‘mistake’ ".
I just wanted to say you that I like you not only as an ‘English teacher’ (who ought to be perfect in eyes of students).
I’ve been considering adding a comment similar to Spencer’s at the bottom of my posts: Any errors you may find are intentional and are specifically included to test your knowledge. :lol: