When you say "quite," what exactly do you mean?
"Quite" is a common adjective here. I guess we use it in the states, but I feel like it's used more often here. When I hear someone say "It's quite far" or "It's quite good" I would take that mean to mean it's "really far" or "really good." But my friend Hilary here said she didn't use it that way. She said if "it's quite far" she would think of it as sort of a medium distance.
So, we turned to dictionary.com:
quite (kw
t)
adv.
- To the greatest extent; completely: quite alone; not quite finished. See Usage Note at perfect.
- Actually; really: I'm quite positive about it.
- To a degree; rather: quite soon; quite tasty.
So apparently it can mean "to the greatest extent" OR only "to a degree." But how can it mean both? If you say "quite" how do I know if you mean only to a degree or if you mean to the greatest extent??
I think I need a little help from my English teacher friends!
1 comments:
Ahh...so we English teachers are useful! I think that as far as "quite" goes, it's possible to mean both and which definition is most appropriate depends on the context of the situation. When you're talking about food or distance (as in "quite good" or "quite far") then "quite" the most appropriate definition is probably "really." But if I ask one of my students whether or not they're finished with a test and they say they're not "quite done" then the most appropriate definition is probably "almost" instead of "really not done". I don't know if this makes any sense. But being secure in my geekdom, it makes sense in my English teacher brain. :-)
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