[lit-ideas] Re: Thursday Thing (no hope for Sunday this week)
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:49:44 +0900
Just to muddle the waters further, in my dialect "pretty good," "pretty
bad," "pretty deep," "pretty shallow" imply moderation in the quality in
question. E.g., "She's pretty good" can imply "Yes, she's got talent, though
she's not a real super star." "That part of the river is pretty deep" says,
"Yes, it may not be the deepest part what but the water, yes, it's deep."
John
On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Since I'm heavily into ambiguity, I can't but notice that "pretty" is
> today
> commonly used for "extremely" or "very," and with a different inflection
> "nearly," as you might say to the little boy who hits the T Ball half way
> to
> the pitcher's mound.
>
> Thus, that sentence might mean "extremely impenetrable," which would be
> open
> to the quibble that something is either penetrable or not, but that would
> at
> least be different from the image this conjured for you, that of an
> impenetrableness that is also "pretty" meaning very good looking, as in a
> "pretty" picture -- or in the case referred to something loosely termed
> impenetrable, like "The Waste Land" when it was first encountered -- that
> was also . . . I don't quite want to say "pretty," but beautiful in spots,
> meaning also that it was only impenetrable in spots.
>
> But it could also mean "nearly" impenetrable; which would make pretty
> perfect sense.
>
> Lawrence
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Eric Yost
> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 11:57 AM
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Thursday Thing (no hope for Sunday this week)
>
> >>teaching them how to say pretty impenetrable things.
>
> hahahahahaha
>
> Did you mean pretty AND impenetrable? "Yonder freshet blooming lilacs
> are a paradigm for post-literate consumer design fetishes, each blue
> panicle a proactive hub of niche marketing."
>
>
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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