My daughter pointed to a sign: “Why does that say it’s quite safe?” she said. I saw her point.

‘Quite’ is generally used to qualify amount. ‘It’s quite fast’ means it’s fast, but not very. So why should anyone claim their treatment was ‘quite’ safe – ie, flag up the fact that it’s actually a bit dangerous.

I’ve mused before on such oddities of the language. Such as the way the expression ‘It’s quite safe’ can be used to mean it’s fairly safe, but also the opposite – that it’s absolutely safe.

And when people ask us how we are, after an illness, we can say ‘I’m better’, which doesn’t actually mean ‘I’m better (than I was, tho’ still not well)’; it means ‘I’m well’. (Indeed, I have on occasion found myself saying ‘I’m better…but not better, if you see what I mean.’)

‘I’m sure it’s fine’ more or often than not means ‘I think it’s fine (though I’m not sure)’.

Strange language we have…