Thursday, April 30, 2009

Big Question

Often I find myself pondering The Big Questions. Seriously. Questions like why the coffee at uni tastes best on a Wednesday and not a Tuesday, and which toilet cubicle has the best graffiti. Today I was thinking about this conundrum: when you say 'not bad', you mean 'yeah, fairly okay, edging on good'. When you say 'not good', you mean bad. Why don't you just say 'bad' or 'good'? Why do we waste a whole syllable saying 'not'?

See? Big Question. I told you.
Procrastination by Emily at 12:14 AM

1 comment:

Topher-o-Rama said...

It's a bit late to comment on this one, but I have the answer for you - provided by Carl Barron, no less.

Australia is the nation of "smart-ass answers". If you think about how you answer questions, you'll find that usually most people tell you how "it's not" rather than how "it is".

Examples:

Q. How are you doing?
A. Not bad

Q. What are you up to?
A. Not much

Q. When will this happen?
A. Oh, it's not long now.

Q. Where's it at?
A. Oh, it's not far.

Q. How much was that?
A. Aw, it wasn't cheap!

11:24 AM

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