NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/usage/english/8574

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 3.4 KB | 95 lines

Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Path: sparky!uunet!convex!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!princeton!crux!roger
From: [e-mail] (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: quite unique
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Originator: news@nimaster
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: crux.princeton.edu
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: alt
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:07:42 GMT
Lines: 79

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Crowley) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rheal Nadeau) writes:

>>>I believe we should only use "quite" if we can use "not quite" in the
>>>same place.

>>Why?

>Because a qualifier points to one possibility out of a set; if it
>doesn't narrow the set of possible interpretations, it's just useless
>weight.

Well, what if "quite" isn't a qualifier, but an intensifier?

And if you claim that that's a kind of qualifier, too, then why
*can't* we say "not quite unique"?

As someone else pointed out, "quite" and "not quite" are not opposites;
they used "dead" to make the point.  We don't say it that way, but the
opposite of "quite dead/unique/funny/whatever" is "quite not dead/etc.",
or, more properly, "Quite alive/common/unfunny/etc."

And, of course, there are the obvious examples of "not quite unique":
they mean "yes, there's another example somewhere, but this is rare
enough for our purposes."

>If a qualifier produces a smaller set of meanings, then that leaves
>another set - the meaning or meanings that were excluded - the "not"
>set.

Not.  See above.  8-)  The complement of "quite" is "not at all,"
not "not quite."

>shapes.  But if I say "a round circle", what am I excluding -
>"not-round circles"?)

Sure.  Sewing circles, for instance.  8-)

>So if I quality "unique" with "quite", what meanings am I excluding,
>if not "not quite unique"?

"Quite un-unique."

>>>But what would "not quite unique" mean?

>>"It's not quite unique -- there's a machine in Colorado that does much
>>the same thing -- but it's not exactly commonplace, all the same."

>Why is this better than "It's not unique"?  You've just added a
>useless word, just weighed down your text unnecessarily.  I'd say

Not so: the nuance that "not quite" adds actually makes the rest of
the sentence unnecessary, or at the very least explains it.

>something like:  "It's uncommon, but not unique; there's a machine
>in Colorado that does much the same thing."

"It's uncommon but not unique" is longer than "it's not quite unique."
Your point?

>Too many people today think adding words indiscriminately makes their
>text look more important (look at standard bureaucratese!).  But all it

Irrelevant.  Have you any evidence that the centuries-old idiom "quite
unique" came about through a desire to seem important?

>does is dilute the meaning - at the extreme, to incomprehensibility.

Not in this case, though.  "Quite unique" has a commonly understood
meaning.

>(And, in fact, this technique is often used to deceive - look at the
>advertising industry .  .  .)

Irrelevant.  "Quite unique" is not used this way.

Roger