Depends on how you say it and in which context.
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.
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
Wow! Pretty good!
Vs
That was pretty good, but…
My Bad-to-Good spectrum would be:
Bad
Pretty bad
Fairly bad
Fairly good
Pretty good
Good
I would rate pretty bad as worse than bad.
“It’s not bad, but it’s still pretty bad” is a phrase I can see myself saying. Not sure about the other way round - doesn’t really work for me, but to each their own…
I see it as similar to “very bad”, which would be worse than just “bad”.
I think both are correct depending on the inflection
Yeah, I think it’s contextual.
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.
And this?
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…”
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”.
This seems like the right take. It’s based on expectations.
it can mean “decent, better than I expected”
or
“good, but not exceptional or memorable”
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.
I think for me it’s generally the same but I’m not a native English speaker so idk lol
“Hey that was actually a pretty good performance for a beginner!” vs. “Well that was also pretty good…”
Worse.
See also: “Pretty close”
Ha, exactly.
Not many options for a little less than good without people getting offended.
“Kinda good” or “almost good” definitely would upset people.
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Depends on the tone.
I’d say it means goodish
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.deleted by creator
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.
Pretty good is less than good.
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”
It would totally depend on my enthusiasm. More often, though, it means worse.
Worse: “Yeah, it’s pretty good. But…” <- Talking about a game or a movie
Better: “Whoa! This is pretty good!” <- Food!
