Divided by a common language
Commenter ‘giles’ says:
The most interesting revelation of the night – that Bill thought Kerry would make “quite” a good president – was I thought the revelation of the night. The parochial BBC pr department seems to have missed it entirely.
The BBC was probably right not to pick up on it, thanks to a very important difference between British English and American English. “Quite” in British-English, and indeed in its Hibernian variant (which is of course the purest and most supple form of the language) means “reasonably, but not very.” Thus, if Bill Clinton were British, his comment would be an unsubtle put-down. However, in American English, “quite” means “very” or “extremely” – so it’s a considerable compliment. One of my friends experienced this ambiguity at first hand a few years ago, when she invited her (American) boyfriend back to Dublin to meet the family. After eating dinner at my friend’s family home, the boyfriend remarked that the food was “quite good.” He thought he was passing a compliment; my friend’s mother thought he was a snotty Yank making disparaging remarks about her cooking, with predictably unfortunate consequences for familial relationships until it was all explained. So, the odds are that Clinton’s comment was entirely unexceptionable. You could probably still advance a malign interpretation: since Clinton has spent a considerable amount of time in the UK, he might have been aware of this ambiguity, and playing it cute by speaking out of both sides of his mouth at once. Still, an interpretation of this sort would seem a bit forced for what was, after all, one brief comment in a rather long interview.
Update: I’d quite forgotten that Chris has already addressed this point in a post last December. *
-Of course I know this about ‘purity’ mm: "this about" is just a charming Celtic wind-up, and besides you’re very bitter right now about what a useless football team you have. But allow me to point out that the uncultured Americans use ‘quite’ in the sense in which it would have been used by, say, Jane Austen, or, going further back, Dr Johnson- so one could argue that it is our American cousins who have preserved the purest form of English.
-These days, a young american is likely to eat a meal cooked by his girlfriend’s mother and remark, “This food is ridiculous.” Roughly translated, that means “quite good.” nice.
*Quite — Crooked Timber these notes added here 9/20/2008 (2 yrs later!) after lkg for this on dlww 9by search: crooked quite) & finding only this post & not the subseq one (bcs 'crooked' d n appear in it, just 'CT' but I have now added the words Crooked Timber) of same day, also labeled 'idiom', where I had made notes of comments on this post. somewhat diff notes though, there I was int in who said what & delighting in wh was said, more, since new to me. here more concerned w the opinions. but check how am consistent in my thoughts about whether usage of quite actually as 'de-intensifier' OR ironically as intensifier.
-‘X is quite nice’ – one says that in a hesitant tone, and no one rushes off to make X’s acquaintance. Quite nice is less nice than very nice, not more so.
-A thing is ‘quite good’; that is to say, it’s really rather good; not, perhaps, absolutely first-water, no; not the dog’s bollocks altogether; but don’t look downhearted, it is still quite good for all that.
- Doesn’t “quite exhausted” mean “completely exhausted” rather than “a little exhausted”. Yes, but that’s because it moderates a pejorative or ‘bad thing’. ‘Quite awful’ usually means ‘very very very awful’ in BritEnglish, though it does have echoes of some plummy Bloomsbury type saying it. Though ‘quite bad’ means ‘not completely bad’. Usually. So, yes, it’s pragmatics gone mad. That said, ‘quite right’ is usually an endorsement, especially on its own, when it’s a pat on the back. And ‘quite the thing’, though getting a little archaic, is also approbative. Consider it a vestige of the BritEnglish tendency for both irony and understatement. ok! that's what I was wondering-supposing (that using 'quite' to de-intensify develops out of irony)
-From my days as an EFL teacher, I thought the distinction was as follows (in UK or American): if quite modifies an adjective which is already at the ‘limit’, for which there is no comparative or superlative, it means ‘completely’, but if comparative or superlative is possible, it means ‘fairly’. Hence ‘quite good’ (because good can become better) means fairly good; quite excellent means ‘absolutely excellent’ because you can’t be more excellent than something else. Hope that’s cleared that up.
-“Quite good” is not a phrase you’ll hear many Americans use as it is a bit of an affectation. Just saying it myself makes me think I should be using an English accent. remember how I taught little Ben to say 'quite tasty.' Of course, I can only speak for the south. Perhaps the yankees up north use it more. As for the meaning of “quite good” it sounds like someone is surprised that something was good.
-[stentor:] My impression is that we Americans often use “quite” to mean “more so than you think.” So if I tell you a movie was “quite good,” I mean that I thought it was better than you seem to expect me to have thought. ie really rather good. rather.
yes, that's right, it can often imply exceeding of low expectations
-I think Stentor is right. I think that “quite” means something like “exactly” or “adequately” and can mean “fully adequate” or “barely adequate” according to context (what is in question, expectations).
-Stentor is right
-As an American (Southern US), if I heard someone say, “I ate lunch at the new restaurant down the street. It was quite good.” I’d understand it at a commendation (perhaps indicating a touch of “better than I expected” per stentor’s comment)
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