The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
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The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
1–10 of 154 posts
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#2Maybe there's a difference in frequency of usage, but we also say things like "he's not wrong" pretty often in English.
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#3As an Australian can I just say of this article: yeah nah
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#4The language pattern the author refers to is called litotes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes), but to say that English doesn’t use them is… not quite right.
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#5As an Australian can I just say of this article: yeah nah
As a New Zealander, I can say: it's not bad.
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#6The debug log was not without its charms.
The article was not bad yet not my favorite.
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#7As a Brit, I'm not quite sure this article is right in it's declaration it's a universal "English" thing and not more "American English".
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#8The language pattern the author refers to is called litotes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes ), but to say that English doesn’t use them is… not quite right.
Not quite right, but not quite wrong, no? The pattern seems similar, but I think of litotes (as the Wikipedia article suggests) as a rhetorical device: the assertion-by-negation carries an ironic charge, and strikes the (Western) ear by standing out from the ordinary affirmative register.
If I'm understanding the author's account of Chinese assertion-by-negation correctly, doesn't it sound like assertion-by-negation is the ordinary case in that linguistic tradition, and it's the assertive case that jars the ear? Same pattern, different effect?
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#9As a Brit, I'm not quite sure this article is right in it's declaration it's a universal "English" thing and not more "American English".
Yep, "not bad" is very very common here - definitely more so than "decent".
Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
#10Maybe there's a difference in frequency of usage, but we also say things like "he's not wrong" pretty often in English.
I reckon a decept part of that is due to American English vs. British English.
A great example of this is the Korean War, where a British brigadier in an extremely difficult situation told an American general "Things are a bit sticky, sir" - who interpreted it as "Could be better, but we're holding the line". The misunderstanding resulted in 500 dead and captured.