Comments on: Quite

By: jn

jn — Fri, 02 Jan 2004 17:02:03 +0000

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). However, context (and non-verbal cues) could cause me to take it as irony: “Did you meet the new manager yet?” “Yeah, he’s quite the expert on our business!” (with rolling eyes, etc.) Not a common turn of phrase in the circles in which I move, but also not one that I’d instinctivelty hear as damning-with-faint-praise.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Fri, 02 Jan 2004 00:57:32 +0000

I use “quite” very often, probably as an affectation. Roughly, I intend it to be closer to “very” than to a damnation with faint praise. I wasn’t aware that Brit English usage is the latter. Where else does the British propensity for understatement and irony complicate trans-Atlantic communication?

By: burner

burner — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 23:38:37 +0000

So do Brits have a completely different interpretation of what the song “Mellow Yellow” is saying? That is, is he the fellow quite rightly mellow?

By: burner

burner — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 23:37:17 +0000

I believe that the subject is considered plural when it represents an aggregate of people. Hence, the sports team and a company are both plural. (in a press release, you’ll see Microsoft are releasing …)

By: Zizka

Zizka — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 19:14:39 +0000

See, guys, we can have a nice, civil, troll-free discussion as long as we avoid topics which lead to bad feeling. The Thurmond family has recently explained to us how hurtful and uncourteous it is to bring up sensitive issues unnecessarily. So in the future let’s just not!

By: reuben

reuben — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:39:15 +0000

Keith It would make my life quite a bit simpler if someone could give me a rule for when the plural is used. Is it only for sports teams? Can only the plural be used for sports teams? Is the plural used for organisations, eg Oxfam? I’m probably showing my lack of gray matter here, but in making the transition from American English to Brit, this is the most vexing difference I’ve encountered. There seem to be know set rules for when plural is used versus singular. Cheers

By: keith

keith — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:24:40 +0000

Reuben: Now you need to get the hang of the plural for sports teams – Chelsea are pretty damn good

By: Ga

Ga — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 06:08:38 +0000

“Quite good” = “really rather good” or “reasonably good” or “pretty good,” but “below excellent.” In my usage. A compliment, not backhanded, but on the moderated side. Not a superlative, but not grudging. Ken above has it.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 05:34:18 +0000

I use quite to modify an adjective in a similar fashion to the following words: Very: Quite good Exactly: Not quite right Definetly: that’s quite enough in the gradient of good, I guess it would be: attrocious quite bad bad adequate good quite good excellent because ‘good’ implies being better than adequate which itself implies a sort of neutral position.

By: clive

clive — Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:11:18 +0000

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.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:36:57 +0000

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).

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 20:33:36 +0000

Now could someone explain “Republican” and “Democrat”? or are we with Alice in Wonderland now, lexically speaking? Is there a DSM-IV for politics?

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 19:31:08 +0000

It’s pretty (or quite) obvious that we haven’t got a clue what we mean by it! Some of us use it one way, some another, some both, some more than two – it’s a catch-all, a flexOmatic word.

By: ahem

ahem — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 19:30:53 +0000

Doesn’t “quite exhausted” mean “completely exhausted” rather than “a little exhausted”. Or “quite spoiled”? 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.

By: CJ

CJ — Tue, 30 Dec 2003 19:08:13 +0000

Quite – that’s a compliment.