Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by ninalanyon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

ninalanyon

> Technically "quite difficult" means "slightly difficult"

Really? You must come from a different literary tradition. Quite means exactly.

See the first definition in the Cambridge Dictionary at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quite

completely:

The two situations are quite different.

The colours almost match but not quite.

I enjoyed her new book though it's not quite as good as her last one.

UK formal Are you quite sure you want to go?

Quite honestly/frankly, the thought of it terrified me.

View on HN

Your examples are excellent but I agree with the GP that "quite" can also be used in the sense of "somewhat but not entirely".

Quite difficult = Not impossible.

So, completely difficult. But completely difficult doesn't sound quite right, probably as less syllables are preferred over many unless there's a quite good reason to prefer the latter.

You've omitted the definition on the lower part of the page:

quite

adverb, predeterminer

"a little or a lot but not completely:"

I'm quite tired but I can certainly walk a little further. There was quite a lot of traffic today but yesterday was even busier. It was quite a difficult job. He's quite attractive but not what I'd call gorgeous. It would be quite a nuisance to write to everyone.

The same dictionary also includes a grammar article clarifying that quite [usually] means "a little, moderately, not very", when the adjective or adverb it modifies is gradable (e.g "good" or indeed "difficult") and it being an intensifier in [generally rarer] situations where the adjective or adverb isn't (e.g "it is quite wrong to say that 'quite' invariably means 'exactly')

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/qui...

My takeaway from all this is that "quite" means literally nothing and belongs on the banned words list.

I agree. It's quite useless.

> Quite means exactly.

Quite.

[Or sometimes “Quite so”.]

Though in informal communication the word's meaning can be quite different depending on context and tone.

Great examples, but you should probably remove the "completely" header - as the following examples don't fall under it. I'll delete this comment in 15 minutes ( • ‿ • )

I didn't add completely, that's a quote directly from the Cambridge Dictionary.

Not only is “completely” the definition they're quoting from the dictionary, it is also exactly what is exemplified by the examples, so I'm not sure what you mean by “don't fall under it”.

Ooooh, now I get it- I completely misunderstood that! Indeed, I can substitute every quiet with completely and it's meaning never changes from how it would've been interpreted!

(And I totally forgot to delete the comment too)

I just didn't realize that and only considered how I'd interpret the meaning of completely on is own. And that meaning doesn't translate to every example, hence my previous confusion

Reply on news.ycombinator.com