I don’t hate it.
That’s what professional curlers say these days to indicate, um, well, that they don’t hate a shot being proposed by another team member or by the coach. It doesn’t set a high bar, does it? Is that really what they’re looking for? Just a shot that they don’t hate?
On the face of it, it seems unnecessarily negative. Couldn’t they just as easily say something more positive?
I love this plan.
I’m excited to be a part of it.
– Ghostbusters
Without going all Bill Murray, isn’t there something mildly positive that could be said? I expect there are many things, but for some reason curlers say this:
I don’t hate it.
I think it’s an example of litotes: phrases that express an affirmative by denying its opposite. In writing, I’m told, they can be used for persuasion, for emphasis, or for avoidance. In conversation, they provide a level of ambiguity that can be useful. In curling discussions, for example, they give the skip a way to indicate some support without specifying how much, and definitely without committing to anything. It’s also a quick way of saying this:
Hm. Your idea is interesting.
It might work, but I have some concerns about it.
On the other hand, I’m not ready to rule it out.
Mostly, I want to be sure we’re not overlooking a better shot.
Let me think (which some personalities hear as, Tell me more).
At least, I don’t hate it is what they used to say. Lately it seems to have fallen out of use. These days, I’m more likely to hear curlers talk about possible shots in some weird conditional way.
If it would ever
roll behind that guard . . .If we could ever
get both of those out . . .
Is it a way of identifying a possible outcome without going so far as to say that you think it’s likely? Is it a way of talking about a shot without quite recommending it, the curling version of plausible deniability? Is it a way of putting what you want from the shot out into the (curling) universe, or has that way of talking gone by the boards, too? (We can only hope.) Or is it just a new way of talking, a habit of speech in which we will search in vain for subtle meaning?
I don’t know. I don’t even know whether I like this new expression.
I don’t hate it.
The good news is that these expressions come and then they go. If they would ever stay, though, would I ever hate that.
Isabel – “Damning with faint praise” comes to mind.
John – IKR? I’d love to ask a skip what they meant – is it just a step above “Hell, no!” or is it more like “I hadn’t thought of that and think it’s worth considering but I won’t say yes just yet.” And of course it could vary by speaker.
I’m not sure. Pardon me, if I’m wrong, but there may be an angle we haven’t considered. Your point has merit. I think of such phrases as positioning spots in conversation where the speakers have a shared goal and different notions of how to get there. “Not hating” seems heavily weighted towards some unspoken notion the speaker would prefer over the suggestion just offered. I find it fascinating that such positioning is built into the communication specific to a particular sport. These may be linguistic features of the game that a folklorist could explore, research for publication in journals or at Wikipedia.
Laurna – I hadn’t thought about the sport-specific nature of it, but I’m having trouble thinking of another sport where strategy plays out in real-time and in our hearing. I’m too long out of business settings to know if this specific phrase has wiggled its way into the meeting room, but it would be interesting to document some of these positioning phrases, as you rightly categorize them.
Re “your idea is interesting but…”
My mother had a saying: If you think that, you’d better have another think coming!”
Tom
Tom – 🙂 Oh, those moms! How’d they get so smart?