Comment by seszett
3 days ago
I think it's especially American English that doesn't use litotes as much as British English or the other Western European languages.
This piece seems to be very much about American English, when I read something like:
> In English, this feels bizarre. If something is good, you say: Nice Great Perfect Brilliant
You would absolutely say "not bad" as an idiomatic variant of "good" in American English.
"not bad, not bad at all"
Yes, that sentence is simply untrue for, at the very least, BrE. For example: https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/chart-show... (2015)
This is all very familiar with this North Eastern American English speaker except the "quite good" one. The rest seem normal to me in my American English. Perhaps it's too many Dr Who and or Monty python as a youth. Though in New England the language can be very sarcastic and indirect.
I think Hiberno-English uses them even more.
Really? I read the same sentence (as an American) and immediately thought that they must be referring to British English. Certainly nobody says brilliant as an affirmation here.
And "no problem" and "not bad" are both common colloquial statements in American English.