Quite

Endearing peculiarities of the English language #31:

He’s quite mad.

A simple declarative statement of three words which can mean two completely and importantly different things:

  • He is completely mad
  • He is a little bit mad

Odd that a word should lose its fundamental function in such a way – the function of ‘quite’ being to modify, to provide more information about; whereas in this instance it actively creates ambiguity.