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> why do we say “brutally” simple and not, say, “elegantly” simple? We do say "elegantly simple". According to Google search result counts, "elegantly simple"
by mkl 3y ago
> why do we say “brutally” simple and not, say, “elegantly” simple?
We do say "elegantly simple". According to Google search result counts, "elegantly simple" is used about 15 times more often than "brutally simple".
- paxys 3y agoYou are right, but Google search is a terrible way to make the comparison. They are returning all websites that are vaguely related to the phase, not doing a word search. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=elegantly+simple%2Cbrutally+simple&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=0&case_insensitive=true https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=elegantly+simp... is much more accurate.
- mkl 3y agoNo, I'm doing a quoted phrase search, not a vague vector similarity search. Turning on verbatim mode doesn't change the results much (13 times more instead of 15).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Cerium 3y agoMy feeling has been that "brutally simple" evokes the meaning of Brutalist architecture, it is a phrase applied to something that is simple, honest, and functional.