• LemmyLefty@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A shrug and a “pretty good” = acceptable, not worth complaining about.

      A slow grin first or it being said loudly = better than good, great.

      Although this depends on how emotive the speaker is.

      • Kafanzi Max. Praetor@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        if someone shrugs with pretty good

        or shrugs with good

        to me the former is still better than the latter.

        I don’t see a way for pretty good to mean less than good

  • pturn1@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My Bad-to-Good spectrum would be:

    Bad

    Pretty bad

    Fairly bad

    Fairly good

    Pretty good

    Good

    • cujo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I have to say my bad-to-good ratio is probably:

      Pretty bad

      Bad

      Not good

      Ok <- Neutral

      Not bad

      Pretty good

      Good

      Which I now realize is a little weird to have “ok” be neutral, with not bad/good on either side of it.

  • weew@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    it can mean “decent, better than I expected”

    or

    “good, but not exceptional or memorable”

  • rich@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    I’m British

    Therefore it ranges from “utter fucking shite but I’ll say it a different way” to “moderately utter bollocks but bearable” right up to “yeah it’s alright”

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Neither, really. I use it to mean “more than expected”. Like, if my kids insist I watch a cartoon with them, and I enjoy it, i’d say it’s “pretty good”. Or if a coworker said something awful about a customer, I might say the comment was “pretty mean”.

  • I_Am_Jacks_____@lemmings.world
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    1 year ago

    I think it depends on what expectations were.

    You and your friends make a horror movie and it’s better than you thought: Hey, that’s pretty good.

    Steven Spielberg makes a mediocre horror movie: It was pretty good.

  • freamon@endlesstalk.org
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    1 year ago

    I think I use ‘pretty good’ to pretend I have an opinion about something, rather than it being a moral judgement:

    How was the film? Pretty good vs.
    How was the film? Good.

  • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Intonation can carry the meaning.

    In the UK, pretty good can mean anything from “not as bad as I thought it would be” to just “OK” or “pretty good! :D”

  • tko@tkohhh.social
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    1 year ago

    I can’t imagine how “pretty good” could mean “better than good.” Most of the examples posted here are talking about how something relates to your expectations, but that’s not the question. Yes, “pretty good” is often used to describe something that is better than expected, but that doesn’t make it better than “good.”

    For example, it doesn’t make sense to say “$50 is good, but $100 is pretty good!”

    I do think “pretty good” is often used as an understated way to say that something is very good, e.g. “Yeah, Messi is pretty good at soccer.” However, that’s a play on the actual meaning of the phrase, and should not be construed as the actual meaning.

  • Sylver@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I see “pretty good” to be better than just “good”. It seems obvious to me, considering one is only good but the other is pretty good.

  • init@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Good

    Pretty good

    Really/Very good

    Extremely good

    Great

    Pretty great

    Really/very great

    Extremely great

    Awesome