Here’s the article where you can see the UK version of this graph.
I’ve always considered pretty good to be a positive modifier on good, making it a little better than good. Not much, but better nonetheless. I’ve never really understood why other people consider it to be worse than good.
Because “pretty” as a modifier generally means that something is relatively so, but not completely.
Like if you draw a line freehand and it comes out “pretty straight”, it’s relatively straight but not completely straight.
If you buy something that is “pretty cheap”, it’s relatively cheap, but still a bit on the expensive side.
Similarly, if something is “pretty good”, it’s relatively good but not perfectly good.
See, I don’t agree with this analysis. It works fine for your pretty straight example, but that’s because Straight is already as straight as it can be. Something can’t be extra straight. But if I were to say something is pretty cheap, I would actually mean that it’s cheaper than I would mean if I just said it was cheap. Generally when I use pretty to qualify something, it’s in relation to my preconceived notion about something, and that’s typically made obvious by the tone of my voice as I say it.
You know, I went into this movie with low expectations, but it’s actually pretty good.
but if I had just used good in that statement, it would be indicating nearly the same thing, but with a little less emphasis.
Lol so I agreed with wanderminds analysis completely and then I thought of replying to you and saying, I think you’re pretty wrong.
And realized that pretty good to me sounds like less than good but pretty wrong sound’s like very very wrong 😰😱😭
