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If you're more curious about this story. I highly recommend slate's slow burn on the Clinton Scandal. https://slate.com/slow-burn https://slate.com/slow-burn
by gunshai 7y ago
If you're more curious about this story. I highly recommend slate's slow burn on the Clinton Scandal.
https://slate.com/slow-burn https://slate.com/slow-burn
Impeccable journalism and incredible interviews are given.
- knicholes 7y agoI'm sorry to be pedantic, but I'm confused by what seemed to be a recommendation to read this link because it's going to be awesome, but then you say "incredible interviews." I'd feel a lot better if you clarified, before I read, "incredible" as in "extraordinary" or "difficult to believe."
- goodcanadian 7y agoI'm having trouble deciding whether or not you are being serious. Yes, technically, the word "incredible" originally meant "not credible." However, in common usage, it simply means, "very good."
- knicholes 7y agoSays who? Merriam-webster's first definition is "too extraordinary and improbable to be believed". Cambridge: "impossible or very difficult to believe:" Dictionary.com: "so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed. not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible." Or is dictionary.com too incredible? And, I know I'm risking hardcore my karma here, but I see "good" used as a moral measure. I doubt that "incredible" is referring to the interviewee's moral excellence, but I could imagine that perhaps the interviews are along the lines of becoming a better person.
- goodcanadian 7y agoPerhaps, I should have specified that it has come to mean good in this context. It probably started out as a short hand for something like "incredibly good" (as in, "it's hard to believe it's so good"). As long as we're quoting dictionary definitions (also from dictionary.com). We're using definition 2, here: incredible adjective 1. beyond belief or understanding; unbelievable 2. informal marvellous; amazing Good is definitely a judgment, but there is no reason to suppose it is a moral one. If I say a sandwich is good, it means that I like the taste not that I think it is righteous in the eyes of God. Ironically, perhaps, if I thought the sandwich was especially delicious, I might say that it is righteous. The vast majority of native English speakers would immediately understand my intended meaning rather than the literal one. I find it somewhat incredible that I have to explain this.
- Smithalicious 7y agoI don't see why you would suspect them of not being serious. Not everyone on this site is a native English speaker. I know when I was first learning English I'd get tripped up by things like awful and awesome, terrific and terrible, being the only one left after your friend has left, turning the alarm off after it goes off, and so on. Plenty of things in the English language that can look like the opposite of what they actually mean.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jackvalentine 7y agoknicholes is from Utah.
- wahern 7y agoThat's incredibly pedantic, and in any event even the dictionary gives extraordinary as a synonym. But I'd never before considered the derivation of incredible before, so I learned something today :) On the other hand, you've ruined me as I'll never be able to unsee in-credible. :(
- mikeash 7y agoVaguely related fun fact: “awful” used to be a synonym for “awesome.”
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI used to confuse these for a long time.
- skinnymuch 7y agoHaha this wins pedantic cake of the month. Of course you know and everyone knows what they meant by incredible. Like how 99%+ people use the word.