awfully pretty
extremely pretty
TRANSLATION
awfully pretty = sehr schön --- GOOGLE INDEX awfully pretty: approximately 150,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
They're AWFULLY PRETTY, but the crystalline waters off Australia's eastern shore are teeming with some of the most dangerous creatures on Earth.
(New York Times)
---
"That girl Diana is AWFULLY PRETTY," remarked the lady, "but she has such a long nose. And so has he. The next generation of the British royal family is going to be all nose."
(The Glasgow Herald)
(New York Times)
---
"That girl Diana is AWFULLY PRETTY," remarked the lady, "but she has such a long nose. And so has he. The next generation of the British royal family is going to be all nose."
(The Glasgow Herald)
Did you
know?
awfully pretty
adjective expression
- very pretty
---
One can't help but shake one's head in amazement at the English language on occasion. As American newspaper columnist Doug Larson once said, "If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur."
Examine the words "awfully" (awful) and "pretty" for a moment. The Cambridge Dictionary says:
- awful/awfully = extremely bad or unpleasant
- pretty = pleasant to look at
We could then interpret the expression "awfully pretty" to mean unpleasantly pleasant to look at. What if we just reverse the words to the form the phrase "pretty awful?" Then we have something that is pleasantly bad. In both cases what we have created is an oxymoron, which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "two words used together which have, or seem to have, opposite meanings."
The truth is, both awful and pretty carry two distinctly different meanings as the Cambridge Dictionary also points out. In addition to "unpleasant," awful is also used as a superlative in the sense of "great." Similarly, "pretty" is used as an adverb to mean "quite, but not extremely." Thus "awful pretty" really means very pretty and "pretty awful" means rather unpleasant.
Here are a few other oxymorons that can be found in everyday English:
- the living dead
- an exact estimate
- virtual reality
- constant variable
- unbiased opinion
- Hell's Angels
- Open secret
- Act naturally
- British fashion
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"You must visit the Alps while you're in Bavaria, they're awfully pretty."
adjective expression
- very pretty
---
One can't help but shake one's head in amazement at the English language on occasion. As American newspaper columnist Doug Larson once said, "If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur."
Examine the words "awfully" (awful) and "pretty" for a moment. The Cambridge Dictionary says:
- awful/awfully = extremely bad or unpleasant
- pretty = pleasant to look at
We could then interpret the expression "awfully pretty" to mean unpleasantly pleasant to look at. What if we just reverse the words to the form the phrase "pretty awful?" Then we have something that is pleasantly bad. In both cases what we have created is an oxymoron, which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as "two words used together which have, or seem to have, opposite meanings."
The truth is, both awful and pretty carry two distinctly different meanings as the Cambridge Dictionary also points out. In addition to "unpleasant," awful is also used as a superlative in the sense of "great." Similarly, "pretty" is used as an adverb to mean "quite, but not extremely." Thus "awful pretty" really means very pretty and "pretty awful" means rather unpleasant.
Here are a few other oxymorons that can be found in everyday English:
- the living dead
- an exact estimate
- virtual reality
- constant variable
- unbiased opinion
- Hell's Angels
- Open secret
- Act naturally
- British fashion
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"You must visit the Alps while you're in Bavaria, they're awfully pretty."
