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The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

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Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#41

Post by bitwize »

English does this kind of thing all the time, as others have pointed out, but often to understate things somewhat. "Not bad!" actually means pretty good, but the speaker does not want to sound as if gushing. (Maybe it wasn't "fantastic", but still more than acceptable.)

Even the opening example—like if Alice said something truthful but offensive or bombastic, and Bob objects, Carol can say "Well, she's not wrong..."

Back when Americans economically feared the Japanese rather than the Chinese, there was a myth that the Japanese were so conformist that the same word meant both "to differ" and "to be wrong"—chigau (違う). Well, Japanese society is pretty conformist, ngl, but the reality is a bit more subtle. In Japanese it's incredibly rude to tell someone they're wrong so instead they say chigaimasu, "it's different".

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#42

Post by [deleted] »

gsf_emergency_6 wrote: post #37
mathewsanders wrote: post #27

This makes me think of a tool from semiotics called the Greimas square where you can have opposing concepts e.g. A and B (ugly & beautiful, for & against, legal & illegal). At the surface level they can appear as binaries, but the negation of A is not equivalent to B and vice versa (e.g. illegal is not equivalent to not-legal) and encourages the consideration of more complex meta-concepts which at surface level seem…

native Americans or Native Americans? the latter would be more like the Moriori and fit the context better, but somehow native English speakers who arent interlegible are also interesting.

[deleted]

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#43

Post by theresistor »

seszett wrote: post #18
alwa wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think it's especially American English that doesn't use litotes as much as British English or the other Western European languages. This piece seems to be very much about American English, when I read something like: > In English, this feels bizarre. If something is good, you say: Nice Great Perfect Brilliant

Really? I read the same sentence (as an American) and immediately thought that they must be referring to British English. Certainly nobody says brilliant as an affirmation here.

And "no problem" and "not bad" are both common colloquial statements in American English.

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#44

Post by Glyptodon »

bitwize wrote: post #41

English does this kind of thing all the time, as others have pointed out, but often to understate things somewhat. "Not bad!" actually means pretty good, but the speaker does not want to sound as if gushing. (Maybe it wasn't "fantastic", but still more than acceptable.) Even the opening example—like if Alice said something truthful but offensive or bombastic, and Bob objects, Carol can say "Well, she's not wrong..."…

In English it's rude to say there's something wrong with somebody's child, so people will say "Jane sure is different." Though it's generally still considered saying too much.

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#45

Post by popalchemist »

mathewsanders wrote: post #27

This makes me think of a tool from semiotics called the Greimas square where you can have opposing concepts e.g. A and B (ugly & beautiful, for & against, legal & illegal). At the surface level they can appear as binaries, but the negation of A is not equivalent to B and vice versa (e.g. illegal is not equivalent to not-legal) and encourages the consideration of more complex meta-concepts which at surface level seem…

Western culture is predicated on a sort of positivist metaphysics, and our language reflects that. Whereas in the east, the langauges and cultures have both long ago (as in, thousands of years ago) assimilated the precepts of non-dualism, which brings with it a greater degree of subtlety, through its embedded understanding of equanimity, dependent arising, and so on. It's a different ontological root, and therefore a different schema altogether.

Knowing what I know of you guys in NZ, a lot of that sort of thinking has made its way into popular understanding by way of encounters with the Maori people, and some of it has to do with more modern notions of pluralism, and some of it has to do with British politeness.

All that to say, it is not your fault nor the Americans fault that there's a gap in understanding. It's the byproduct of where those two schemas do not connect.

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#47

Post by theresistor »

sph wrote: post #15
tomww wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, "not bad" is very very common here - definitely more so than "decent".

"How are you?" "Not too bad" always makes me smile. Such a British answer.

I say and hear it all the time in the US...

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#48

Post by tomlockwood »

astrange wrote: post #24
tomlockwood wrote: post #3

As an Australian can I just say of this article: yeah nah

One thing I remember from languagelog is that almost all English speakers have a form of "yeah no" and they all think they invented it. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=30758 Might be Scottish.

Not only did Australians invent it, we also invented Pavlova, Sam Neill, etc.

Re: The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void

#49

Post by paleotrope »

adw wrote: post #36
seszett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's especially American English that doesn't use litotes as much as British English or the other Western European languages. This piece seems to be very much about American English, when I read something like: > In English, this feels bizarre. If something is good, you say: Nice Great Perfect Brilliant

Yes, that sentence is simply untrue for, at the very least, BrE. For example: https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/chart-show... (2015)

This is all very familiar with this North Eastern American English speaker except the "quite good" one. The rest seem normal to me in my American English. Perhaps it's too many Dr Who and or Monty python as a youth. Though in New England the language can be very sarcastic and indirect.
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