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ALL ANGLES

rasterize, rock, Rothko, rhyme, Rohmer

Several people I've talked to or I've heard use the adverb of degree "quite" to mean "slight." Although it's just a little bit bothering, it's quite wrong. Completely wrong.

Let me demonstrate.

When someone says, "The taste is bitter but I'm just quite used to it." She's mistaken. She wants to say that she is only a bit accustomed to bitter melon but uses the adverb to describe her degree of adaptation to the activity. WRONG.

I remember looking up the meaning of quite as a 13-year-old student of English. Right there, right after the word quite listed in good ol' Webster, it says "completely."

I looked it up again for the sake of supporting this post of mine. From WordWeb dictionary:
Adverb: quite kwIt
1. To a degree (not used with a negative)
"quite soon"; "quite ill"; "quite rich"; "quite tasty"
2. To the greatest extent; completely
"you're quite right"; "she was quite alone"; "was quite mistaken"; "quite the opposite"; "not quite finished"; "did not quite make it"
3. Of an unusually noticeable, exceptional or remarkable kind (not used with a negative)
"her victory was quite something"; "she's quite a girl"; "quite a film"; "we've had quite an afternoon";
- quite a, quite an
4. Actually, truly or to an extreme
"was quite a sudden change"; "it's quite the thing to do"; "quite the rage"; "Quite so!"
Nuff said. #
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ART AS A PEDESTRIAN

Hi, I'm Camille, and I'm a real journalist from Manila. Without claiming expertise on the subjects, I try to write about my artistic and cultural encounters on this 17-year-old spot.

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Whut!

We will have but one option: We will have to adapt. The future will present itself with a ruthlessness yet unknown.
~Michelangelo Antonioni, filmmaker

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...
~first lines of Charles Dickens' The Tale of Two Cities

Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world.
~Matthew Arnold, cultural critic

The only way to really change society is through culture ... it's not through force, it's not through armies, it's not through politics (but) through freedom.
~Dony McManus, artist

You are a fine person, Mr. Baggins ... but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!
~Gandalf in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

"I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
~Groucho Marx, actor

Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find a face of his own.
~Logan P. Smith, essayist

God is in the details.
~Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect

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