"Fairly/Quite": stresses for "not exactly small" and "almost huge."

Asked Aug 15 '21 at 18:13

Active Aug 25 '21 at 10:54

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When spoken, the meaning can vary with the tone of voice and stress: He was fairly/quite big can mean anything from "not exactly small" to "almost huge".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quite#Usage_notes

What different phonological stresses is it referring to?

Is it the same situation as Wiktionary states for pretty ?

When particularly stressed, the adverb pretty serves almost to diminish the adjective or adverb that it modifies.

edited Aug 25 '21 at 10:54

asked Aug 15 '21 at 18:13

GJC

2,491

Vocal stress. How much emphasis is put on a word (and, as the author says, its tone.) – Greybeard Aug 15 '21 at 18:38
The 'almost huge' sense is achieved by using the raised-eyebrows equivalent of scare quotes. I'd say the whole expression is stressed here. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 15 '21 at 18:52
@EdwinAshworth raised-eyebrows? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/raise_eyebrows – GJC Aug 15 '21 at 18:59
In answering another question about "negative" dictionary definitions, I pointed out that one definition of mediocre as "not very good" has at least two meanings depending on the stress, only one of which IMO works for mediocre. – DjinTonic Aug 15 '21 at 19:00
The past participle used as a premodifier (and thus requiring a hyphen) meaning 'having one's eyebrows raised [to convey emphasis]'. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 16 '21 at 13:26

"Fairly/Quite": stresses for "not exactly small" and "almost huge."

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