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.
if someone shrugs with pretty good
or shrugs with good
to me the former is still better than the latter.
I don’t see a way for pretty good to mean less than good
Wow! Pretty good!
Vs
That was pretty 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?
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”
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”.
Depends on the tone.
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Pretty good is less than 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 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.Depends on tone.
I see “pretty good” to be better than just “good”. It seems obvious to me, considering one is only good but the other is pretty good.
It 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!
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.
