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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.
Wow! Pretty good!
Vs
That was pretty good, but…
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…”
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?
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.
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.
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…”
I’d say it means goodish
Depends on the tone.
Pretty good is less than good.
I’m British
Therefore it ranges from “utter fucking shite but I’ll say it a different way” to “moderately utter bollocks but bearable” right up to “yeah it’s alright”
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.
I do the same. I don’t have an established opinion on everything, and it can take some time to form one, so if someone presses me for an answer to, say, “What did you think of that movie?” shortly after I’ve left the cinema, it’s always “pretty good.”
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.
I can’t imagine how “pretty good” could mean “better than good.” Most of the examples posted here are talking about how something relates to your expectations, but that’s not the question. Yes, “pretty good” is often used to describe something that is better than expected, but that doesn’t make it better than “good.”
For example, it doesn’t make sense to say “$50 is good, but $100 is pretty good!”
I do think “pretty good” is often used as an understated way to say that something is very good, e.g. “Yeah, Messi is pretty good at soccer.” However, that’s a play on the actual meaning of the phrase, and should not be construed as the actual meaning.
Depends on tone.