The architecture of “not bad”: Decoding the Chinese source code of the void
by Suggger on 12/11/2025, 2:21:14 PM
https://suggger.substack.com/p/the-architecture-of-not-bad-decoding
Comments
by: BurritoAlPastor
The language pattern the author refers to is called litotes (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes</a>), but to say that English doesn’t use them is… not quite right.
12/11/2025, 9:05:14 PM
by: kimixa
As a Brit, I'm not quite sure this article is right in it's declaration it's a universal "English" thing and not more "American English".
12/11/2025, 9:23:24 PM
by: skybrian
Maybe there's a difference in frequency of usage, but we also say things like "he's not wrong" pretty often in English.
12/11/2025, 9:01:12 PM
by: Bengalilol
The debug log was not without its charms. The article was not bad yet not my favorite.
12/11/2025, 9:15:02 PM
by: tomlockwood
As an Australian can I just say of this article: yeah nah
12/11/2025, 9:04:36 PM
by: Stevvo
Poetic racism. Very odd reading.
12/11/2025, 9:44:21 PM
by: crooked-v
Something about this article strikes home for me. I default to 'not bad' for something I don't actively dislike; past that it's a pretty substantial jump to get to 'good', at probably about the same point I'd be willing to actively recommend something to someone else, and then even more substantial to get to anything like 'great'.
12/11/2025, 9:53:33 PM
by: mschuster91
> You name the quality directly. You point at it. You own it.<p>Fun thing: it works even better with Americans and Germans when it comes to negativity, because Germans also express <i>negativity</i> directly. For me, as a German, Americans want to be coddled and they <i>do not</i> like it if you clearly express to an American that he is bullshitting you. Germans (and I'd say, Germanic/Nordic-origin cultures as a whole) don't like wasting time coddling around and sucking up for no reason at all. We're an efficient people, after all.<p>That's also a part of why Linus Torvalds is such a polarizing figure across the Internet. To me as a German, yes, he could dial down the ad-hominem a bit but that's it. The constant American whining about his tone however is... grating on my nerves. He's speaking the truth, accept it for what it is and move the fuck on.<p>Oh, and it's also why Wal-Mart failed so disastrously many decades ago when they tried to enter Germany. Ignoring labor rights was bad enough, but we could have let that slide (given that <i>our own</i> discounters were all heavily embroiled in scandals)... but what was just way too uncanny from what I hear from older people who actually lived during that time was the greeters. And it matches up with many a write-up [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://medium.com/the-global-millennial/why-walmart-failed-in-germany-f1c3ca7eea65" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/the-global-millennial/why-walmart-failed-...</a>
12/11/2025, 9:36:54 PM