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Originally Posted by rostasi
Wow, must be that Polish to English dictionary, but one of those is correct.
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In the UK at least, the Google translate suggestions are not completely detached from reality: there was a lot of talk over there about a decade ago about how "banter" is supposed to be friendly chatter but in fact more often than not it's either passive or overtly aggressive. "Hey, we're just bantering over here," is something one could say after cracking a racially charged joke, that sort of thing.
I think in the British context this word's got those more aggressive connotations as
it's closely tied to their football culture:
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Banter is not chit-chat. It is instead an aggressively specialised form of predominantly male speech, a tone of willed, cajoling hilarity. Banter may have once suggested just a passing mood but it has gathered itself in recent years and come back reinforced, tooled-up, formalised into a permanent state of being, a career, a lifestyle choice. Racked with wheedling mirth, suckling at the oxygen mask of cliche, the banterer now walks among us unashamed, burping out his gobbets of sports-guff.
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