PonyOfWar ( @PonyOfWar@pawb.social ) 32•11 months agoDepends on how you say it and in which context.
neptune ( @neptune@dmv.social ) English5•11 months agoWow! Pretty good!
Vs
That was pretty good, but…
magnetosphere ( @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org ) 19•11 months agoFor 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…”
Adramis [he/him] ( @Adramis@beehaw.org ) 11•11 months agoGenerally 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
Ey ich frag doch nur ( @EyIchFragDochNur@feddit.de ) 1•11 months ago“Hey that was actually a pretty good performance for a beginner!” vs. “Well that was also pretty good…”
ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠 ( @Nemo@midwest.social ) 11•11 months agoNeither, 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”.
weew ( @weew@lemmy.ca ) 9•11 months agoit can mean “decent, better than I expected”
or
“good, but not exceptional or memorable”
Melllvar ( @charonn0@startrek.website ) English9•11 months agoWorse.
See also: “Pretty close”
angstylittlecatboy ( @angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com ) English8•11 months agoDepends on the tone.
freamon ( @freamon@endlesstalk.org ) English7•11 months agoI 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_Am_Jacks_____ ( @I_Am_Jacks_____@lemmings.world ) 7•11 months agoI 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.
Kissaki ( @Kissaki@feddit.de ) English5•11 months agoPretty good is less than good.
init ( @init@lemmy.ml ) 4•11 months agoGood
Pretty good
Really/Very good
Extremely good
Great
Pretty great
Really/very great
Extremely great
Awesome
…
🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️ ( @Kolanaki@yiffit.net ) English3•11 months agoIt would totally depend on my enthusiasm. More often, though, it means worse.
Worse: “Yeah, it’s pretty good. But…” <- Talking about a game or a movie
Better: “Whoa! This is pretty good!” <- Food!
tko ( @tko@tkohhh.social ) English3•11 months agoI 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.
dan1101 ( @dan1101@lemm.ee ) 2•11 months agoWorse. Sometimes just a little worse than good, sometimes it’s medium or negative but you’re just trying to be nice. “How did you like the liver and onions I cooked for you?”. “It was pretty good.”
ArcaneSlime ( @ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 2•11 months agoDepends on tone.