Life In 19x19

Tommie, if "excellent" becomes the standard for something that can be improved significantly (and, as the thread has shown, the book's contents can), then later better books on any (or the same) topic cannot (by the same standard) be assessed as better because "excellent" is the best possible quality. One does not need to have read the book to come to this basic insight.

(If the top voting rating were called "very good" instead of "excellent", I might have lower reservations.)

RobertJasiek wrote:Tommie, if "excellent" becomes the standard for something that can be improved significantly (and, as the thread has shown, the book's contents can), then later better books on any (or the same) topic cannot (by the same standard) be assessed as better because "excellent" is the best possible quality. One does not need to have read the book to come to this basic insight.

(If the top voting rating were called "very good" instead of "excellent", I might have lower reservations.)

according to your argument one can not place the statement "excellent" on anything.

i have a feeling that you know that your argument dont make any sense because you are resonably smart person.
dont try too hard to make sense of non-sense it will only make you look foolish.

RobertJasiek wrote:Tommie, if "excellent" becomes the standard for something that can be improved significantly (and, as the thread has shown, the book's contents can), then later better books on any (or the same) topic cannot (by the same standard) be assessed as better because "excellent" is the best possible quality. One does not need to have read the book to come to this basic insight.

(If the top voting rating were called "very good" instead of "excellent", I might have lower reservations.)

So you would say "excellent" is a synonym of "completely perfect"?

If someone feels the book was genuinely excellent, they are entitled to feel that way and vote accordingly. Something that gives an incredibly hard topic a very good overview may have a number of flaws but still be excellent with regards to the task undertaken. Remember, a vote of "excellent" is a personal and subjective opinion by the voter. It isn't "wrong" just because you don't like it.

A go book is excellent if both

- its impact on the suitable reader's strength or knowledge improvement and
- the quality and completeness of contents in relation to its number of pages

are excellent. (If one of them is excellent and the other is very good, then, if you like, you can round up.)

E.g., Lessons in the Fundamentals is excellent concerning the first aspect but poor concerning the second aspect.

Looking at only one of the two aspects does not do a go book sufficient justice.

Once again we see a non-native speaker of English telling us native speakers we don't know our own language.

Consider a couple of sentences:

"This car is in excellent condition. Only $500 for quick sale."

"I've just had an excellent meal, even though I don't like sprouts."

"Bill & Ted's excellent adventure."

The first two are hardly likely to refer to the best car on the road or a three-star (or three flogged horses) Michelin meal, and it's anybody's guess what excellent in the third one really means.

It is a characteristic of language that many evaluative words are actually fuzzy. What's the difference between, many, a largeish share, considerable, significant, not inconsiderable, a good deal?

What's the difference between excellent, fine, wonderful, spot on, great, fantastic, marvellous, pretty good, pretty-pretty good, smashing?

Long live fuzziness. Do we want to live in a world where you go to a concert and have to clap 6 times, 10 times or 20 times to show differening degrees of approval?

John Fairbairn wrote:Long live fuzziness. Do we want to live in a world where you go to a concert and have to clap 6 times, 10 times or 20 times to show differening degrees of approval?

This made me laugh out loud John, many thanks

John Fairbairn wrote:Do we want to live in a world where you go to a concert and have to clap 6 times, 10 times or 20 times to show differening degrees of approval?

Yes, yes, yes, I want to live in that world! It can be very efficient. Also, for extra approval, you have to make a little dance while clapping.

Conversations can be much simplified: "Good day Mr. Jones, how are you today?" - "why Mr. Eddington, with this beautiful weather I'm feeling round about 8.3/10 today, two and a half thanks for asking". Romance will also be easy: "Oh sweetheart! My love for you ranks over 9000!"

Only one question remains: what to do when you want to show six and a half claps of approval?

Excellent used in advertisement to let something appear better than it is may be grammatically correct but is semantically abusing by misleading intentionally.

Citations from two authoritative British sources:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entr ... _gb0278700

"extremely good; outstanding"

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction ... /excellent

"extremely good"

So the word in its basic meaning has the same meaning as the German word.

So, I could read a book, think "Wow, what a complicated concept, this book isn't perfect but I felt it was an extremely good book at covering this issue" - why am I not allowed to vote my opinion of it as "excellent"?

EDIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Instead of all these simple confusing terms, lets be much more clear!

Rate books as:

• This book exceeded my expectation in every way imaginable. If you buy only one go book in your life, make sure it is this one.
• This book was incredible, certainly one of the top 10 books ever to have been published in the English language.
• This is a great book, I learned very much from it and would heartily recommend anyone to buy it.
• This book covers its subject satisfactorily. Although there are better books, this can still be a fine addition to your collection.
• This book is very poor. I would not recommend anyone buy it, I consider it a waste of money.

gaius wrote:Only one question remains: what to do when you want to show six and a half claps of approval?

That's an easy one. Everyone has to strap a touch screen to their chest that displays the proper value.

Only one question remains: what to do when you want to show six and a half claps of approval?

Take up Zen and learnt he sound of one hand clapping. That way you can also have an ice-cream koan in the interval.

Can we please split this up into a separate thread or something? It's a little annoying wading through all this stuff to read actual reviews...

Also

John Fairbairn wrote:Once again we see a non-native speaker of English telling us native speakers we don't know our own language.

I really hate this kind of attitude. I feel like it most often comes from xenophobes who resent that non-native speakers may very well have a deeper understanding of the technicalities of the language than native speakers, who never spent as much time studying grammar exhaustively.

I'm not saying this description applies to you, but I really wish people could be a little less resentful of others learning their language.

Jedo wrote:

John Fairbairn wrote:Once again we see a non-native speaker of English telling us native speakers we don't know our own language.

I really hate this kind of attitude. I feel like it most often comes from xenophobes who resent that non-native speakers may very well have a deeper understanding of the technicalities of the language than native speakers, who never spent as much time studying grammar exhaustively.

I'm not saying this description applies to you, but I really wish people could be a little less resentful of others learning their language.

While your peeve is perfectly legitimate regarding grammar, in this context the discussion is about the meaning of a word. Word meanings are a great deal more variable and fuzzy than the grammatical rules of a language, and common usage plays an important role in establishing their definitions. Those most exposed to the common usage of a word are usually native speakers. Whereas knowledge of grammar simply requires study, knowledge of the roles words play in the broader web of meaning requires exposure.

As John points out, this is especially true of evaluative words. To give an example, in English the word 'awesome' no longer has any strong ties to actual awe, despite dictionary definitions and etymology.

moved to new thread - q.e.d.