• LemmyLefty
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      201 year ago

      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.

      • kalfa
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        11 year ago

        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

  • magnetosphere
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    1 year ago

    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…”

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
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    131 year ago

    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”.

    • @MedicPigBabySaver@voxpop.social
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      21 year ago

      Ha, exactly.

      Not many options for a little less than good without people getting offended.

      “Kinda good” or “almost good” definitely would upset people.

  • @weew@lemmy.ca
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    121 year ago

    it can mean “decent, better than I expected”

    or

    “good, but not exceptional or memorable”

  • Adramis [he/him]
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    111 year ago

    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.

  • freamon
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    81 year ago

    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.

    • Link.wav [he/him]
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      21 year ago

      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_Am_Jacks_____@lemmings.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
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    1 year ago

    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!

  • XIIIesq
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    51 year ago

    Intonation can carry the meaning.

    In the UK, pretty good can mean anything from “not as bad as I thought it would be” to just “OK” or “pretty good! :D”