Yesterday’s Zits, featuring Jeremy and his dad:
First, Jeremy steps back from saying that what his father said was not uncool (which isn’t all the way to saying that it was cool — so, sort of cool), but moderates this already modest assertion with almost; so Jeremy sees it as not quite sort of cool, but in the right direction. Then his father picks up on the almost not, and uses it to say that what Jeremy said almost didn’t make him feel insulted; that is, he felt insulted, but just barely.
April 10, 2012 at 6:38 am |
This reminds me of the time I came home with a Kangol cap, which surprised my then-teenage son. I explained that it was the only one in the store that fit my relatively large head, to which he responded, “I can’t believe it. The one time you do something cool you do it by accident!”
(Needless to say, I wear it with the peak in front. Having made the mistake of doing something cool, I can’t then wear it in a way that would claim, even ironically, that I actually was cool.)