Definitely agree about the UK and US meanings being different, but I still think that the UK meaning in the absence of other information is usually 'moderately'. The trouble is that, at least in the examples I can think of offhand, it seems to be enormously sensitive to context.
Yes, I think this was what I was trying to say. I think the basic definition is something like 'fairly, nearly or moderately'. But it is so often dependent on things like tone and context and is very often used with negative connotations.
The school where I wrote reports had a policy of having to say at least one positive thing about each student. Sometimes that was quite(!) difficult, and the word 'quite' with its natural ambiguity came in very handy. 'X is quite good at algebra but...'
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Date: 2008-10-24 03:52 pm (UTC)Yes, I think this was what I was trying to say. I think the basic definition is something like 'fairly, nearly or moderately'. But it is so often dependent on things like tone and context and is very often used with negative connotations.
The school where I wrote reports had a policy of having to say at least one positive thing about each student. Sometimes that was quite(!) difficult, and the word 'quite' with its natural ambiguity came in very handy. 'X is quite good at algebra but...'