{"id":285,"date":"2013-09-30T13:47:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T11:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/?p=285"},"modified":"2013-09-30T13:47:40","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T11:47:40","slug":"its-actually-quite-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/its-actually-quite-good","title":{"rendered":"It’s actually quite good…"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nuances of the meaning of words, according to culture and standards of politeness, makes for fascinating study. Duncan Green provides a decoding table for British expressions on his blog at http:\/\/www.oxfamblogs.org\/fp2p\/?p=5672<\/a><\/p>\n

The British are masters of understatement (which is probably best served with a stiff upper lip). When a Brit purports something is \u2018not bad\u2019 they mean that in their estimation it\u2019s actually \u2018quite good\u2019.<\/p>\n

Yet the understatement rule cannot be generalised, because, if a Brit says something is \u2018quite good\u2019, they don\u2019t mean it\u2019s brilliant, but rather \u2018a bit disappointing\u2019. And if the conversation is interrupted with, \u2018with the greatest respect\u2026,\u2019 none is intended. The interjector is being euphemistic: He thinks you\u2019re an absolute fool.<\/p>\n

Even within<\/i> a culture there may be misunderstandings of meaning. As social animals we try to glean significance from tone and context, but this approach is also not fool-proof, since context might be disguised or misread.<\/p>\n

Consequently, a comment made facetiously, and blandly, might not be interpreted as such \u2013 and, taken at face value, might lead to a double loss of face by the recipient.<\/p>\n

When a junior copywriter hears telephonically that a new client has \u2018only a few comments\u2019 regarding the draft material presented, it would be best to hold judgment until presented with the list.<\/p>\n

If the client turns out to be over-fastidious, this might in fact mean that a complete copy overhaul or rewrite is required as opposed to the mere correction of a couple of errant typos. Of course, if the copywriter is British, he or she is certainly going to be \u2018a bit disappointed\u2019 by the seeming turn of events.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me of the following tongue-in-cheek anecdote: How many copywriters does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: \u2018NONE. PLEASE! DON\u2019T… CHANGE… ANYTHING.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nuances of the meaning of words, according to culture and standards of politeness, makes for fascinating study. Duncan Green provides a decoding table for British expressions on his blog at http:\/\/www.oxfamblogs.org\/fp2p\/?p=5672 The British are masters of understatement (which is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[42,41],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-use","category-words-2","tag-euphemistic","tag-understatement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gavinford.com\/thinkspot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}