Vocabulary Spotlight | Fine, Good, and Great!

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack explain what it means when Americans use the terms fine, good, and great. Transcript: 00:00:01 Jack Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are stepping into the vocabulary spotlight and we're going to focus on three adjectives. Fine, good and great and what they actually mean in. 00:00:21 Jack The context of a a meal or other situations so social do you want to explain what we're talking about here today? 00:00:32 Xochitl Yes. Umm. So I think that fine, good and great are kind of a uh. 00:00:40 Xochitl Hierarchy almost of of ratings and sign is. 00:00:46 Xochitl You know that's the lowest. 00:00:48 Xochitl Good is the one in the middle. 00:00:50 Xochitl And great is the highest. 00:00:53 Xochitl In terms of values, but I feel like in the US cultural context it it switches up a little bit because Jack. 00:01:01 Xochitl If I ask you how is the meal and you say it was fine, what does that say to you? 00:01:07 Jack If I say it was fine means it was acceptable but but not. 00:01:13 Jack Nothing special. You know, it was just like it was. OK, that's what it means. It was fine. It was. It wasn't. It wasn't below. It wasn't where it wasn't so bad that I would complain about it. Yeah, it wasn't bad, but it it wasn't it. It was average. It just means average. 00:01:15 Xochitl Yeah. 00:01:25 Xochitl Wasn't bad. 00:01:33 Jack I would say. 00:01:33 발표자 Yeah, it means. 00:01:34 Xochitl Average, which in the US cultural context means not really good enough anyway. 00:01:41 Jack Yeah. Like you go to a restaurant, you're like it was fine. I don't think you're gonna go back to that restaurant again, you know. 00:01:48 Xochitl No. 00:01:50 발표자 Yeah. 00:01:51 Xochitl Yeah. And so then if I ask you, ohh, how was your meal and you say it was good? What? 00:01:56 Xochitl Would that mean? 00:01:58 Jack That would mean it was better than fine. So it was it was above acceptable range. It was above average, but just barely, you know, just just slightly above average. 00:02:12 Jack You know good. 00:02:12 Xochitl Yeah, it was nothing, really too special. Even though you would normally think. 00:02:19 Xochitl Ohh it's a good meal. It's good but. 00:02:22 Xochitl Typically when we use it in that context, it's shifts to mean you know it was an acceptable above average, but not being spectacular. 00:02:33 Jack Right it in. I might go back again, but I might forget about that restaurant. You know, it's it it. It's not memorable, you know. 00:02:43 Xochitl Yeah. 00:02:44 Xochitl And then if I say Jack, how was your? 00:02:45 Xochitl Meal and you say oh it. 00:02:46 Xochitl Was great. What does that mean? 00:02:49 Jack That means that I had a really good dining experience like you with the food was was right on point. Maybe the atmosphere was really nice in the restaurant and it was a great meal. And so it's a place that I would definitely. 00:03:06 Jack Recommend to other people. 00:03:09 Jack And I would probably go back again to that restaurant. 00:03:15 Xochitl Yeah. So I think it's a little different for us in the US because I know that even other English speaking countries like the UK sign good and great take on different meanings. And in the US, we're kind of. 00:03:34 Xochitl We're very uh. 00:03:37 Xochitl Exuberant by nature, which I guess means, you know, easily excitable and very over. 00:03:44 Jack Exaggerate, you know. 00:03:46 Xochitl Yes. 00:03:47 Xochitl Yeah, we do. So if a meal is fine in the US, it's like. 00:03:52 Xochitl It's not great. So I think that's just an interesting thing about our culture. What would you say? 00:03:58 Xochitl About that, Jack. 00:03:59 Jack Yeah, it's, it's where Americans really have a hard time being negative. We try to put a positive spin on everything, but what happens when you do that is that basically words take on new meanings, right? You change the meaning of the wor