• 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.

  • magnetosphere @beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    For me, it all depends on tone of voice, and what word is emphasized. “Pretty good!” generally means better than expected. “Pretty good” is like “Good, but…”

  • 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”.

  • 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”

    • MedicPigBabySaver@voxpop.social
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      1 year ago

      Ha, exactly.

      Not many options for a little less than good without people getting offended.

      “Kinda good” or “almost good” definitely would upset people.

  • Adramis [he/him]@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Generally better, but it’s contextual. Someone saying with a surprised tone “It was pretty good” implies that it’s better than good and better than expected, and that the person might not have expected it to be good. Someone saying with a muted or dull “It was good…” would be worse than “pretty good” and implies that it was acceptable but disappointing or mediocre.

  • 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”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.