Your everything else is... well, your skin is still there!
"For an amateur production, the color came out very well... perhaps by scrapping the soundtrack and running it with subtitles or dubbing it in Esperanto, it could be promoted as a foreign art film of some sort or other."
Sometimes, someone or something is bad in some way or we plain old dislike it, but for whatever reason we can't or don't want to be upfront about it. Perhaps we are being nice, or perhaps we are in a situation where negative comments are frowned upon. Maybe we're expected to give a positive response, or maybe we're simply being clever with our insults. So, to avoid directly criticizing our subject, we damn it by faint praise instead.
When you damn something by faint praise, you're obliquely criticizing the subject by praising it in ways that reveal either its weaknesses or that you, in reality, dislike it. For example, if you say that a computer "looks sleek" as the primary point of praise, what you're actually saying is "the appearance is its best trait" and that it isn't any good when used as a computer (i.e. it looks pretty but is otherwise useless). Or, to be asked to give your thoughts on a person you hate and responding with "their shoes look decent" heavily implies you have no positive sentiment to share, as you're specifically avoiding saying anything about the person.
Alternatively, a work might be "praised" by being compared to something else that's widely accepted as being not at all good. For example, you might say "this movie has a more coherent plot than Plan 9 from Outer Space", with the idea being that the movie it's being compared to doesn't have a coherent plot itself — making the comment of "a more coherent plot" meaningless since it implies the only good thing about it is that it's marginally better than slop.
By nature, this trope is extremely susceptible to being Played for Laughs. Related to many Insult Tropes. May take the form of an Overly Narrow Superlative or a Trivially Obvious statement. May also, in a funeral setting, result from Never Speak Ill of the Dead if the deceased is not particularly missed. The Four-Point Scale may result in this, as high scores are given to things that are just okay so that fans see a 7 or 8 as a "bad" score. Second Place Is for Losers is also related, as a second place trophy by definition means you didn't do as good as the first place winner.
Compare Damned by a Fool's Praise and The One Thing I Don't Hate About You. See also Wants a Prize for Basic Decency, So Okay, It's Average, Not Like Other Girls, The Odd-pliment, and You Are a Credit to Your Race. Contrast with Stealth Insult, which also damns people through "praise" — in that case, though, the praise is illusionary rather than merely weak. Those who confuse faint praise with actual praise will claim that It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars. If the "praise" itself is merely of bad quality or functionally a Non Sequitur regardless of its end effect or intent, then it's Half-Baked Niceness — an overlap can happen if the praise is lousily done and also serves as oblique criticism at the same time.
Contrast Warmed by Faint Praise, when faint praise is taken as a great compliment, usually because its source usually doesn't give praise of any kind, so getting him or her to say anything even remotely positive (or to refrain from saying anything negative) is a definite Out-of-Character Moment.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Chevrolet runs a TV commercial where it shows all of the cars it makes that get better EPA estimated mileage than the equivalent Honda. At the end of the commercial, the announcer says, "There's one thing Honda makes that we can't compete with. It's even self-propelled," and the camera pans down to show a Honda lawnmower.
- The jargon used by real-estate agents effectively does this by trying to turn everything into a compliment. "Cozy" just means too small, "a good fixer-upper" means it's a dump, an "efficient" kitchen means it's only big enough for one person. Specific examples include:
- The Simpsons: "That house is on fire!" "'Motivated seller'!"
- The Dutch Comedy show Koefnoen did a similar sketch where two obnoxious yuppies "translated" every selling point a real estate agent gave them, ("Good access by car and public transport." "Highway through the back yard, foundations ruined by the subway line.") turning into a "The Reason You Suck" Speech. As they walked away satisfied, they decided they were going to buy it anyway.
- Fred Dagg on the subject: "Like so many other jobs in this wonderful society of ours, the basic function of the real estate agent is to increase the price of the article without actually producing anything, and as a result it has a lot to do with communication, terminology, and calling a spade a delightfully bucolic colonial winner facing north and offering a unique opportunity to the handyman."
- Freakonomics includes a whole chapter on real estate listings, pointing out that, unless it's an objective, physical description of the house itself, everything should be taken as faint praise. Eg: "granite countertops" is good, "cozy" and "cute" are so vague as to be meaningless, "good neighborhood" means the house is terrible but there are nicer houses around. If you see an exclamation point, stay far away (it means the agent is faking enthusiasm to cover for a total lack of real qualities).
- The Lying Ape says an apartment described as "cozy" meant you could cook a meal, watch television and answer the front door without getting up from the toilet.
- Houses in less-desirable neighborhoods will usually get write-ups along the lines of "close to schools, parks and shopping!" (since that's true of practically every neighborhood in any good-sized city).
- The Finnish government ran a study of the quality of all spectacles on sale in the country. The results concluded that they were all as good as one another. Newcomers to the market Specsavers ran a front-page advert congratulating a rival optical chain on being just as good as them. Specsavers' products are about a third of the price.
- The DVD Verdict review for
Battlefield Earth comments that "You know you have a stinker the size of Texas on your hands when the best review quote they could find for the box was '...great scene transitions and some of the better special effects of the year...'" The reviewer himself takes it even further in "The Evidence" part of his review (where praise of a film's good qualities normally goes) by going, "Umm...lemme see...the DVD itself is a picture disc. And there are end credits. See, I can spot the good in everything if I try."
- The box of the film Dragon Kingdom lists a review quote claiming that it has "more dragons than The Hobbit films combined!" Ignoring that the presence of lots of dragons isn't exactly a universal standard of quality, those remotely familiar with The Hobbit will tell you that there's a grand total of one dragon that appears. So basically, the most positive thing they could say about the film is that there are at least two dragons in it.
- A review quoted on the back cover of a Lensman novel by E.E. "Doc" Smith reads: "Fine for science fiction addicts." It's like an endorsement for methadone.
Comic Books
- Aggretsuko: Meet Her World: At the end of issue 2, Retsuko's mediocre painting skills receive meager complements from her coworkers.
Kabae: Much better, Retsuko! It kind of looks like a sunset now. At least you are a very good accountant.
Tsubone: A much better accountant. Much, much better accountant.
Ton: Nice goin' Calendar. That one shows some potential. If you squint really hard at it. - Captain America: When Cap meets John Jameson, son of J. Jonah Jameson, the conversation quickly turns to how ol' J.J. feels about most superheroes. John assures Cap that his dad once said something nice about him. Once. (To be fair, by J.J.'s standards, that's practically gushing.)
- DC Super Hero Girls: In the graphic novel "Space Out", Green Lantern Jessica Cruz botches her first combat simulation. Coach Wildcat tries to reassure her: "Don't worry about it, kiddo. It wasn't the worst first try I've ever seen."
- The Eternals: The Titan Accord Experiments tried to create a new generation of Eternals, an artificial race normally bound by an Immortal Procreation Clause. The two Eternals born of the experiments were Thanos and his brother Eros, better known as Starfox. Thanos is described in the histories as a "mass-murderer on a universal scale". Starfox, a hero and member of The Avengers, simply as a "moderately successful adventurer". The experiment is deemed a failure. Much, much later, Starfox gets to read the histories and see how dismissively they describe him.
- Josie and the Pussycats: In one comic, all the Pussycats can say about a band that wanted to open for them is "Um... they have nice hair."
- Legion of Super-Heroes: The Legion normally explain to tryout members why they aren't accepted, such as poor temperament, weak powers, or lack of control. In the case of Arm-Fall-Off Boy, they forgo any criticism and just thank him for being willing to show up.
- Miracleman: In the final battle, Miraclewoman tries to fight the maddened Kid Miracleman. Miracleman's internal monologue notes that "of the two, she was more graceful and controlled, more skilled and more intelligent in her attack, her moves more subtle and precise. Judging by those terms, I'd say she won." It then becomes very clear that those are the only terms under which it could be said she won that battle, as he casually defeats her in about three panels.
- In The New Champion of Shazam!, Fawcett Community College does this to itself, with a video that starts off by saying that it's the perfect place to complete your education if you don't want to leave Philadelphia, or go to a different school in Philidelphia, and ending by boasting that the college has been nominated for "some awards".
- Nova: One issue in Nova (2007) features an inversion of this, where the titular character ends up being praised by faint damnation. When he's hooking up with his old friends from the New Warriors, they gently make fun of the fact that he's grown far beyond them after he Took a Level in Badass in Annihilation, comparing him to being the one guy in the band who actually got famous. Nova attempts to nod off the praise by calling back to an earlier issue when he met the Silver Surfer and basically got his ass kicked... at which they point out that casually having a hostile encounter with the Silver Surfer and living to tell about it is pretty damn indicative of how strong he's become, and joke about it as if he just met a major celebrity.
- The Punisher MAX: In The Platoon, Cuong is second in command of a frontline military unit, and when asked what his good points are, Colonel Giap merely says that Cuong loyally follows his orders and that Cuong's father is a general.
- Rick and Morty (Oni): Morty considers it a win that Rick would rather kill a bunch of robot doppelgangers of him at Rickworld than him specifically.
- Scott Pilgrim:
- Knives Chau takes this route when telling the newly formed Shatterband what she thought of their first performance ("You guys have so much potential!"). Young Neil opts for Brutal Honesty instead.
- Ramona at one point tells Scott that he's the nicest guy she's ever dated.note
- Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures: In "Appetite for Adventure", Obi-Wan tells poor Dex (who put himself through hell getting Dractuvian Cave Slugs to serve his friend) that the only reason Obi claimed them to be the best thing he ate on Dractu was because the food there is all disgusting.
- The Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Starscream exploits this a bit, noting that he is "the best leader in the history of Cybertron." In a vacuum, this would be pretty high praise, and seem rather gracious to his reign (which was seriously corrupt, marked by constant disasters and scandals, and ended with him being given a life sentence), but everyone else was a warmonger, an imperialist, a segregationist, or a downright supervillain, so "best" is more like "least awful" — and all he had to do to earn that was to not try and kill everyone at any point.
Comic Strips
- In Bloom County, at the Premature Eulogy for Steve Dallas, Portnoy pompously begins a speech "about the finer qualities of our good, deceased friend." After two Beat Panels, Opus (who in the previous strip makes a quixotic effort to Never Speak Ill of the Dead) suggests, "He could spit forty feet." Portnoy quickly and loudly wraps the speech up: "For which we loved him like a brother. Good night."
- In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin reasons that Santa will deem him nice because he hasn't committed any heinous acts such as murder.
- In one strip of FoxTrot Paige gives her English essay to Roger for reviewing instead of Andy. Roger proceeds to compliment the penmanship and neat margins of the paper while saying absolutely nothing about the content of the essay itself. Paige doesn't seem to mind, as she proclaims to her offscreen mother that she prefers her dad's critiquing style.
- One particular Garfield strip went thusly:
Garfield: Odie, you're smarter than you look.
Odie: [begins panting happily]
Garfield: [to audience] Although he's still dumb enough to think that's a compliment. - This Modern World: Done in one exchange in the Buddy Cop Show parody, as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are driving a car that's dodging missiles and jumping over sharks. The entire thing is a Take That! against George W. Bush's claim that the two were allies.
Saddam Hussein: You're not so bad after all— for a psychotic religious zealot, that is!
Osama bin Laden: And you are tolerable as well— as murderous pagans go. - A meta-example involving two of the above strips: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson once "complimented" the Garfield strip as "consistent."
Films — Animation
- In The Addams Family (2019), when Gomez witnesses Pugsley's first real attempt at the Mazurka - a display of swordsmanship intended to show how an Addams defends their family- all Gomez can say is "That was most definitely a thing you did", avoiding saying directly that Pugsley's bad at the Mazurka.
- Anastasia:
Vlad: Well?
Sophie: Well, she answered every question. - The Bad Guys (2022): When the titular group of criminals are celebrating Mr. Snake's birthday, he states that out of all the people on Earth, he hates his colleagues the least. Amusingly, they all take it as a huge compliment, with Mr. Piranha even tearing up because of it.
- The trailer for Bébé's Kids ends with the line "It's animation..." Gives you an idea of the overall quality if this is the best they can say about it. To be fair it's actually supposed to be "it's animation... with an attitude" but a technical glitch caused it to cut off. This was later fixed, but most (including The Nostalgia Critic who popularized the glitched version) would agree the original glitched trailer was a lot more accurate than the fixed one.
- Coco: When Héctor and Miguel learn the former is the latter's long-lost great-great-grandfather, Héctor laments that he's a pretty poor excuse for one. When Miguel tries to reassure him that two seconds ago he thought he was related to a murderer and Héctor is a total upgrade by comparison, Héctor is not convinced.
- Parodied in The Emperor's New Groove, where Kuzco insults a row of beautiful girls with offhand remarks, most of which are directly insulting, but to the final one he says, in very sarcastic tones, "Let me guess, you have a great personality?" Even better is the fact that they all look identical. The fact that the other girls have to physically restrain the last one to keep her from attacking Kuzco shows that she's well aware it wasn't a compliment.
- The Little Mermaid: Eric is presented with a large, extremely gaudy statue of himself and raises his eyebrow, less than pleased, while his dog Max snarls at the statue in complete disapproval.
Eric: Uh, gee, Grim. It's uh... it's... it's really something.
- Shrek:
- Shrek 1: As Shrek leads Donkey through a swamp, Donkey complains about its miserable state and wonders aloud who would be crazy enough to live there. Shrek replies that this is actually his home. Donkey immediately showers the swamp with (rather weak) compliments.
Donkey: I like that boulder. That is a nice boulder!- In Shrek 2, Fiona's parents are shocked that she has married an ogre, and she is asked where she lives.
Fiona: Well... Shrek owns his own land.* [nervous laugh] Don't you, honey?
Shrek: Oh, yes. Heh-heh. It's in an... enchanted forest. Abundant in... squirrels, and... cute little duckies, and...
Donkey: What?! [laughs] I know you ain't talkin' about the swamp!
Films — Live-Action
- In Amadeus, this trope practically defines Mozart's relationship with Salieri. In one scene he says to Salieri, "I did some variations on a piece of yours. A funny little tune, but it yielded some good things." In another scene, after Mozart attends a performance of Salieri's music, Mozart compliments him with "I never knew music like that were possible. One hears such sounds and what can one say, but - Salieri!"
- Apparently the best that whoever designed the DVD case for Beverly Hills Chihuahua could come up with was "The Greatest Chihuahua Movie of All Time." Considering that the only real competition for that title are the sequels, that's not a difficult feat.
- In Bridget Jones's Diary, Jeffrey Archer makes a Celebrity Cameo as himself at a book launch. Bridget, who's giving the introductory speech, spots him in the crowd just after she's described the book her company is publishing as "the greatest book of our time" ... and goes on to tell Archer that "yours aren't bad either".
- The quality of the infamous Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie can be gleaned from the fact that the best review the marketers could find for the back of the DVD case was “Loads of teen appeal!”
- In Chaplin, Charlie admits that he's marrying his very young lover because he thinks she's carrying his child. When he insists "she's really not that bad," his friend quips "Spoken like a man madly in love."
- Dance of the Dead: An accidental version. While they're surrounded by zombies, Gwen finds out Steven had wanted to go to prom that afternoon. Steven says that he chickened out due to believing she would have said no and Gwen replies (with an earnest smile) that if it was a choice between being at prom with him and being chased by zombies, she would have chosen him. Steven takes it in the spirit it was meant rather than how it came out.
- Doctor in Love: After hearing that Dr. Cardew is looking for an assistant, Sir Lancelot tells him that Dr. Hare is the "least incompetent" of the "cretinous bunch of nincompoops available at this slaughterhouse".
- During Gillian Loeb's funeral in The Dark Knight, Mayor Garcia struggles to find a nice thing to say about him, given he openly admits during his eulogy that he got angry calls about the man and his policies, before saying that Loeb was dedicated to the law and didn't mince words.
- In Kill Bill, Bill, when asked for his opinion about the Bride's fiancé (whom he later more honestly describes as a "fucking jerk"), says "I like his hair."
- Maid to Order (1987): At the beginning of the film, Jessie is showing off her latest outfit to Trini, the maid, who struggles to say something nice about the Tacky Tuxedo and top hat.
Jessie: Trini, how do I look?
Trini: Oh, it's... uh... you, Miss Jessie.
Jessie: Thank you.
[Trini sighs, rolls her eyes, and turns away.] - In Office Space, Tom has an idea for a fad toy he calls the "Jump to Conclusions Mat." Peter flat out tells him it's a terrible idea. Later on in the film, Tom is showing off a finished prototype of the mat. Peter, trying to be kind, says "It's... exactly as you described."
- In Poor Pretty Eddie, Liz's opinion on Eddie's off-key singing is "It's better than lots that I've heard before."
- In Robert Altman's Popeye, Olive Oyl sings "He's Large", which is faint praise for her fiancé Bluto. The only positives she can come up with are his large stature and the fact that "he's mine." Her friends giggle, "You can have him!"
- Terrified: When the Occult Detective Jano crosses paths with his much more esteemed colleague Dr. Mora Allbreck, he references the book he wrote, and Allbreck's entire feedback is, "The cover was very well done." Jano's awkward expression indicates that he hears the unstated insult.
- This Is Spın̈al Tap: One critic praises the band as "very punctual". They're also quite proud of their reputation as "England's loudest band."
- In Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Tucker's not great at pep-talks.
Tucker: You are a good-lookin' man... more or less. You got a damn good heart. [Beat] That's two things right there.
- Familiarity with this trope causes confusion in this scene from When Harry Met Sally..., in which Harry tries to set up his friend on a blind date with Sally:
Jess: So you're saying she's not that attractive?
Harry: No, I told you she's attractive.
Jess: But you also said she has a good personality.
Harry: She has a good personality. (pause) What?
Jess: When someone's not attractive, they're always described as having a good personality. [...] So which is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right? (gets a death glare from Harry)
Music
- Flight of the Conchords:
- The band bills itself as New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk duo.
- "The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room)" is all about this. The speaker hits on a girl by telling her that she's the most beautiful girl in the "whole wide room" and that when she's walking down a street, she'd probably be among the top three hottest girls on the street (depending on the street).
- One review of Pink Floyd's album Ummagumma called it "an admirable record to fall asleep to."
- The Soundgarden album "Ultramega Ok." (The band were dissatisfied with the production but happy with the songs themselves)
- In their stage performances, veteran Irish folk group The Dubliners would often credit their late member Barney as being "probably the best banjo player in the whole of the Dubliners."
- Keith Moon, The Who's Cloudcuckoolander drummer, once made the bold claim that he was "the best Keith Moon-type drummer in the world."
- One of Tom Lehrer's album covers cheerfully included lines from a brutal series of newspaper reviews, ending with the Oakland Tribune's "plays the piano acceptably".
- His praise for "good old American" Wernher von Braun in That Was the Year That Was wasn't particularly flattering either.
Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude...
Like the widows and cripples in Old London Town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun!
- His praise for "good old American" Wernher von Braun
- In the "Weird Al" Yankovic album Polka Party!, the song "Good Enough For Now" is all about this. His momentary lover is described as "pretty good", "above average", "the woman that he's (not really) always dreamed of", and he doesn't plan to leave her... until "something better comes along".
- In the JT Music rap battle between the Heavy and Zarya, Heavy takes a moment to take a jab at his teammate the Scout.
Heavy: Hey, Scout!
Scout: Yeah?
Heavy: Thank Zarya! She makes you look intimidating!
Scout: Hey! - The band SR-71's only major hit, "Right Now", released in 2000, describes a relationship that is this to a T. The main hook of the song is "She may not be Miss Right, she'll do right now." Faint praise, indeed.
Podcasts
- A Running Gag in the podcast Behind the Bastards is that whatever products and services the ad break is about to shill for probably haven't been involved with the subject of this week's episode, which tends to involve 'schenanigans' like genocide, terrorism, torture, shameless exploitation of slave labour, running violent cults, running police states, and False Flag Operations.
- One of Tony's patrons who requested The Cat from Outer Space for Patron Request Month on Escape from Vault Disney! only said in his explanation "It's definitely a movie."
- Interstitial: Actual Play:
- It crops up when the party encounter Merlin in Twilight Town. He thinks the dropout from Yen Sid's class is Edith rather than Criss, and Criss defends her by claiming that she doesn't have nearly the potential Yen Sid looks for in a student and would never be taught by him.
- Again near the end of the first season. While trying to brag about his companions, Criss gives impressive images of Edith and Roxanne and then implies the most interesting thing about Marche is that he can drive a car.
- Frequent in Mom Can't Cook!, due to the usual quality of the material under review:
- Actors are frequently described as "doing the best with what they were given". Although Luke does at one point declare that that's probably the best you could ask for.
- When noting how Cadet Kelly has a lot of scenes that amount to nothing, we get this gem:
Luke: I'll say this for Cadet Kelly: it is just jam-packed with events.Andy: Yeah, scenes and occurrences...
- Get a Clue was the third film Lindsay Lohan had to make as part of a contract with Disney. Luke imagines that after having seen it, families would have turned to each other and just gone "well, everyone filled their contractual obligation there."
- They agree that Ready to Run was quite good simply for having a coherent plot with actual acts and good directing. As they note, this is coming right after the complete nonsense that was in Get a Clue the previous week.
- An example also crops up in one of the movies under review: they note that in Alley Cats Strike, Todd's line that people will see Ken because he's "real and [he's] there" falls under this trope.
Andy: "What I can say about you, Ken, is that you're extant."
- Wooden Overcoats: A twofer with the main characters' Family Business, a funeral home. It has a stellar reputation as being the only funeral home on the island (prior to the start of the series), and the company motto, of which Rudyard is very proud, is, "We get the body in the coffin in the ground on time." Even though, as his sister Antigone points out, that is literally the bare minimum of what they're supposed to be doing. And in a good chunk of the episodes, they don't even manage that much.
Pro Wrestling
- Mick Foley tells a story in one of his books about Owen Hart's feud with Dan Severn. Evidently, when Mick asked Owen how his match went with Severn, Owen replied with "He's a nice guy." When Mick repeated the question, Owen responded again with "He's a nice guy."
- A popular expression amongst wrestlers is (or was) "You stole the house but it was petty theft", in other words you had the only match that didn't completely suck on a show that was otherwise terrible. Most commonly used in WCW during their first down period.
Radio
- Cabin Pressure:
- Martin responds to Arthur's Christmas gift with "Thank you, Arthur, it's just what I... least expected."
- Douglas gives Martin a job reference stating that "other than myself, there is no one at MJN whose skills as a pilot I rate higher." They're MJN's only two pilots.
- Martin was also called on one occasion "very nearly the best pilot at MJN Air", to much the same effect.
- Arthur thinks pretty much everyone is, in his words, "brilliant", so when he's asked to describe his father and the best he can come up with is "he's all right", Martin's immediate reaction is "God, he must be awful!" Later in the same episode, Carolyn greets Arthur's father (her ex-husband) with "Hello, Gordon. How necessary to see you."
- In the episode "Limerick", the only response to Arthur's rather ham-fisted attempt at a limerick Martin and Douglas can muster is "It was very... wasn't it, Douglas?" "Oh, yes, and more!"
Sports
- In sports, coaches and management praise the "character" and contribution to "dressing room culture" of athletes when they have nothing positive to say about the athletes' contributions to the game. When a coach says "We showed a lot of character out there today," you can surmise that the team in question lost, and probably by a large margin.
- In 1939, the great New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig had been experiencing periodic weakness and loss of muscle coordination but tried to ignore it. One day during a game, he fielded a routine grounder and flipped the ball to the pitcher covering first base, ending the inning. As Gehrig made it back to the dugout, his teammates showered him with praise, patting him on the back and congratulating him. Realizing how badly he must have been performing if such a routine play earned so much praise, he quit the game. Soon after, he was diagnosed with ALS, a disease now commonly referred to in North America as "Lou Gehrig's Disease." It would kill him two years later.
- Association Football
- Monday 18th November 2024. UEFA Nations League. Liechtenstein vs San Marino. Final Score 1 - 3. The latter are officially the worst team in the FIFA World Rankings, while the former is also in the bottom ten (which makes sense, since the combined population of both nations could fit into Real Madrid's stadium with a few thousand seats to spare). The sporting press was quick to acknowledge this monumental occasion with passive mocking reporting towards both teams. This result was responsible for several firsts in SM's footballing history that would be totally unremarkable anywhere else:
- Their first ever away win (both previous wins against Liechtenstein were at home, for a 3 game winning streak against them. L's own last win was against San Marino in 2020).
- The first time they've scored more than one goal in a competitive fixture and the first time they've ever scored three.
- The first time they've come from behind to win.
- Monday 18th November 2024. UEFA Nations League. Liechtenstein vs San Marino. Final Score 1 - 3. The latter are officially the worst team in the FIFA World Rankings, while the former is also in the bottom ten (which makes sense, since the combined population of both nations could fit into Real Madrid's stadium with a few thousand seats to spare). The sporting press was quick to acknowledge this monumental occasion with passive mocking reporting towards both teams. This result was responsible for several firsts in SM's footballing history that would be totally unremarkable anywhere else:
- After the 2024 National Basketball Association All-Star Game, which the Eastern Conference won by a record-breaking final score of 211–186, in a game most observers found deathly dull, with both teams shooting countless three-pointers and not bothering to play defense, league commissioner Adam Silver praised the winning team, not by honoring their athleticism or display of skills, but by noting that "you scored the most points; well, congratulations."
Tabletop Games
- An old DC Adventures sourcebook featured profiles of various Golden Age characters, with added commentary by supervillain Captain Nazi. Mr. America's profile declares "perhaps his most impressive talent is his unrivaled mastery of the bullwhip," to which Captain Nazi responds by simply repeating the words sarcastically—after all, claiming to be a Badass Normal on the basis of being an Improbable Weapon User in an era where guns and superpowers exist is pretty sad.
- An infamous Community Chest Card in Monopoly will inform you, "You have won second prize in a beauty contest!" This dubious distinction will award you a whopping $11. Although in some newer versions of the game, you only get $10.
Theatre
- The book Theatrical Anecdotes speaks of a producer who, when invited to a friend's show that really sucked, would congratulate them with the phrase, "My dear! Good is not the word!"
- In The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), when discussing Shakespeare's Apocrypha (also known as "the lesser plays", and sometimes simply "the bad plays"), the Reduced Shakespeare Company hasten to add that Troilus and Cressida is "hardly crap at all".
- In Hairspray, Tracy's mother thanks Velma Von Tussle for letting Tracy appear on her TV show (she didn't, actually; the decision had been made without her and she protested vehemently). Velma replies, "Well, Tracy has certainly... redefined our standards."
- An excerpt from Veronica's diary in Heathers: The Musical:
Kurt Kelly. Quarterback. He is the smartest guy on the football team, which is kind of like being the tallest dwarf.
- Mr Puntila and His Man Matti: After Puntila, while drunk, has said about the attaché, fiancé of his daughter Eva, that he "isn't a man", Eva defends the attaché in conversation with Matti as "an intelligent and kind man whom you can't judge by his appearance, or by what he says or what he does."
- The Pirates of Penzance:
- Frederic worries if Ruth is not as beautiful as other women are, and the pirates struggle to say good things about her:
Pirate King: Oh, Ruth is very well, very well indeed.
Samuel: Yes, there are the remains of a fine woman about Ruth. - The Major-General unknowingly does this to himself in his song. His military knowledge includes impressive things like being able to "tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin" and knowing more about tactics than "a novice in a nunnery". Several of his other boasts are unimpressive if you know what he's talking about — for instance, he knows "the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes." The Croaking Chorus in question is just the Greek onomatopoeia for "frog noise." So it's basically "ribbit."
- Frederic worries if Ruth is not as beautiful as other women are, and the pirates struggle to say good things about her:
- In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Doctor Frank-N-Further asks his servants on their opinion of Rocky, his latest creation. While Riff Raff and Magenta offer lavish praise, Columbia enthusiastically says "He's okay!" The doctor doesn't appreciate that.
- Ruddigore:
- Robin is talking to Rose about Richard, beginning by saying he'll "stand up for Dick through thick and thin!" However, every single thing Robin says about Richard, although masquerading as a compliment, is, in fact, nothing of the kind.
- When Rose asks Robin whether Richard is like most sailors in that he is "worldly", he says, "And what then? Admit that Dick is not a steady character and that when he's excited he uses language that would make your hair curl. Grant that — he does. It's the truth, and I'm not going to deny it. But look at his good qualities. He's as nimble as a pony, and his hornpipe is the talk of the Fleet!"
- When Rose asks if Richard drinks, Robin says, "Well, suppose he does, and I don't say he don't, for rum's his bane, and ever has been. He does drink — I won't deny it. But what of that? Look at his arms — tattooed to the shoulder!"
- Finally, when Rose wonders whether Richard would cheat on her while he was away on a sailing voyage, Robin says, "Granted—granted—and I don't say that Dick isn't as bad as any of 'em. You are, you know you are, you dog! a devil of a fellow--a regular out-and-out Lothario! But what then? You can't have everything, and a better hand at turning-in a dead-eye don't walk a deck! And what an accomplishment that is in a family man!"
- In Trial by Jury the Judge's ex-wife is described by her father as being able to pass for forty-three, in the dusk, with the light behind her.
- Evil Dead: The Musical: Linda is repeatedly called "the perfect girl," while her boyfriend Ash is repeatedly called "a housewares employee."
Video Games
- In Assassin's Creed I, the Rafiq in charge of the Assassin Bureau in Damascus will tell Altaïr that he deeply envies him. Well, except for the fact that his arrogance got Altaïr stripped of his rank and equipment and got him stabbed in the gut, and every other Assassin hates his guts now... or rather, are able to openly hate his guts now.
- Bear & Breakfast: After Hank repairs the Workbench, Tony says that it's good... enough. Hank doesn't appreciate it, but Tony assures him that he'll get better at repairs soon.
- DanceDanceRevolution has the step judgement rank of "Good", below "Great", "Perfect", and "Marvelous". It is the lowest positive-sounding rank and really means you are considerably off-timing, but not enough for your Life Meter to decrease. In most games it awards no points and it breaks your combo (which also means it damages "battery" lifebars and triggers an instant failure on an Encore Extra Stage, making a Good hit anything but actually good for you in those conditions). It wasn't until DanceDanceRevolution (2013) that it no longer broke combo (and thus triggered the aforementioned penalties), and DanceDanceRevolution A onwards awards a small amount of points for it (20% of a Marvelous minus 10 points, to be exact). It still awards 0 points on the EX scoring system, however.
- Deltarune:
- When pressed to try and flatter Berdly, the best Queen can come up with is "I Love Tolerating You". Fortunately for her, Berdly is self-deluded and self-absorbed enough to take that as a sincere compliment.
- After learning that Ralsei's room in the castle is completely empty, Susie promises that she and Kris will find him furniture. She starts by dragging in the hairy Ice-E statue from Kris's room (or if you failed to get that one, a trash can). Checking it results in the flavor text "By process of elimination this is the best thing in Ralsei's room."
- Shows up during one of the Multiple Endings of Disgaea 3 when Flonne is pressed to find something good to say about Laharl. Flonne, after some hesitation, manages to say that she could like how everything revolves around him, how he has the heart of a young boy, and how sticks to his beliefs even when it causes people to get hurt. Laharl is altogether less than pleased.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, The Warden is offered a vote on how to dispense with a magical criminal responsible for poisoning a nobleman. The Warden can give a response like "He did agree to help us... though he didn't have much choice", to which the Arl calls the trope out by name. What's more, the magical criminal was partially responsible for the problem that he agreed to help to solve.
- This little ditty from IGN's review of Extreme PaintBrawl 2: "There is one good thing I can say about Extreme PaintBrawl 2: it doesn't cause cancer, bursitis, or scurvy — at least according to the Surgeon General."
- There is a rare inversion of the trope in Final Fantasy XIV. Gigi, an NPC in the Goldsmith's Guild, gives such over-the-top criticism of the player's first couple works (a copper ingot is "not fit to make a chamberpot", and a copper gorget is "an affront to the gods themselves") that his only response to a box of copper rings being "I've seen worse" is treated as high praise.
- In Fire Emblem Fates, King Garon insults his child Corrin this way just before the first phase of the Final Battle of the Birthright route.
Garon: For someone who spent much of his/her life as a pampered shut-in... You've achieved something approaching competence.
Corrin: Gee, thanks for the compliment. - Golden Sun: Dark Dawn's character bios list Karis, an overbearing and easily-annoyed Tsundere, as the "most levelheaded" of the starting three characters. This speaks volumes (or not) about Matthew, the hero.
- Katamari Damacy: In Beautiful Katamari, if the King of All Cosmos isn't impressed with your rolling results, but still turns it into a star, he'll observe "At least it doesn't take up much space..." Of course, he doesn't shy away from straight insults, either... the RoboKing in Katamari Forever is even better at this, in part thanks to his tendency to blame himself.
- In Kitty Powers' Matchmaker, your clients and their dates comment that any 1-star restaurant they visit at least meets the hygiene standards.
- The Disciple, from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, will give you a laundry list of complaints he has with the Jedi if you ask him: they're arrogant, they're out of touch, and their greatest Knights keep on falling to the dark side. But he will concede that people are wrong to conflate them with the Sith, and they do have symbolic value. He supposes.
- In Mutant Football League, if the Leaveland Burns manage to eke out a win, "Brickhead" Mulligan will congratulate them on how, "...for one glorious night, they weren't the worst."
- After 10 days into Papers, Please and again after the 20th day, you receive a plaque from your supervisor recognizing you for your excellence if you have not received any citations. If you have gotten any citations, up to 20, you instead get a plaque recognizing you for your "sufficience". If you have gotten more than 20 citations, you "earn" a plaque recognizing you for your "presence". Lampshaded by a Scripted Event entrant on day 12 who snarks at you if you have a Sufficience plaque, and outright sarcastically remarks "way to go" if you have a Presence plaque.
- Persona series:
- In Persona 4:
- Kanji does his best to not insult Yukiko's cooking. He ends up with "It tastes really... boneless?", then notes "It's pretty impressive that you put so many ingredients into a dish and it came out tasting like nothing." Granted, it apparently turned out slightly better than Chie or Rise's cooking, the latter of which causes Yukiko to pass out after a single bite.
- Yukiko possibly unintentionally does this when she remarks that Chie gets above average grades in the subjects she doesn't fail.
- In Persona 5, near the end of Haru's Confidant, Takakura, the new president of Okumura Foods after her father's death asks her what she thinks about her fiancé, Sugimura. Haru, still a bit guarded around Takakura, politely describes Sugimura as "an intelligent man," but says she has no interest in being his wife. In reality, Haru had previously called Sugimura a "creep," and had decided to steal her father's heart so she wouldn't have to go through with the Arranged Marriage with Sugimura.
- In Persona 4:
- In Pixel Cat's End, one of the choices in Indoor Day #169 has one not-cat posing for another not-cat as the latter's muse. After their painting is done, the muse gets confused for a while before realizing it's them with multicolored noodles. They then compliment the artist's... "creativity?".
- In Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, the second gym leader, oddly enough, does this to himself when he says, "IF IT'S WORM ELF, I'M NOT DEFEATED BY EVERYONE."note
- Later in the same game, a trainer in the Fighting Gym declares that, "OUR FIGHTERS ARE NOT TERRIBLE!"
- Salazar in Resident Evil 4 manages to do this to himself when taunting Leon over the radio about finding the hedge maze. Salazar remarks that, "as sagacious as I am, even I get lost here sometimes", while the hedge maze itself is rather small, straightforward, and Leon finds his way through with little difficulty despite having to also search it for Mac Guffins while being attacked by parasite-infected wolves. As a large part of Salazar's backstory is that he was too stupid to realize Saddler was manipulating him by feeding to his guilt and playing off his religious beliefs, and not to mention views him largely as expendable while he thinks he's someone important now, this speaks volumes about how "sagacious" the little freak really is.
- Shadowrun Returns:
- The introduction explains that you are currently living in an apartment that has four walls, a roof, and isn't on fire. Also there are no cockroaches because they have higher standards.
- In Shadowrun: Dragonfall, if you accept a particular assassination job, choose to spare the target, then have a change of heart and kill him anyway when the client's goons show up to check on you, you'll receive your payment along with a note from the client that your performance was "satisfactory"... and that you shouldn't expect to receive any more contracts from them.
- Splatoon:
- At one point in Splatoon 2, Pearl asks Marina to tell the viewers about Inkblot Art Academy, but all Marina can come up with is "It's a place that exists." They later admit that they can't badmouth the Academy on-air because it's one of their sponsors.
- Splatoon 3 awards the player various medals after each match according to their performance. Most of them are genuinely positive ("#1 Turf Inker", "#1 Enemy Splatter"), but if you don't do well you'll start to get medals like "#1 Ink Consumer" or "#1 Ground Traveler." If the the best thing the game can say about your performance is "you used a lot of ink" or "you sure walked a lot", chances are you didn't do too well. The most extreme examples are probably the "#1 (Special) User" medals, as the game will award them to you even if you're the only player using a loadout that includes that special and are thus the only player in the match capable of earning it. This means the game is patting you on the back for managing to activate your special at least one time.
- Towards the end of Spec Ops: The Line, Big Bad Konrad claims he's not a madman by telling the Captain Walker "I assure you, I'm as sane as you are, Captain." As the tone of voice, not to mention the previous several hours of the game, suggests, this is not intended as a reassurance. Not long after, you find that Konrad was Dead All Along, and Captain Walker was talking to a figment of his imagination so he could deny that "The only villain here is you, Walker." "Konrad" was indeed as sane as Captain Walker.
- The demo for The Stanley Parable features a "compliments room", where pushing the button will earn you a shallow compliment from the narrator. He's only able to praise the player's ability to eat uranium, then place them in the top 5000 of people playing the demo at this exact moment, before running out of nice things to say.
- Tales of Xillia has a moment of Alvin and Milla discussing her getting some training in her swordsmanship in, though she is less than adequate at fighting at this point. Cue Alvin giving her faint praise.
Alvin: If nothing else, you know how to swing the pointy end.
- Played for laughs in World of Warcraft regarding the engineering profession which at high levels allows characters to "make fantastic devices and explosives that very often work as intended."
Visual Novels
- Midway through GENBA no Kizuna, Keiichi Genba and his fellow officers confront Raptor Pack Productions, the primary witnesses and suspects in this case, having realized that they have lied to the police about various things. However, Himatsu Mizu ends up spouting off half-baked theories, and Keiichi, rather than rein her in, argues against her, resulting in them inadvertently accusing Ryuunosuke Hazama of the murder. In the aftermath, Shinketsu Kikai, a medical examiner who had a very low opinion of Keiichi from the get-go, says that despite the confrontation being a "train wreck," he handled himself "almost adequately" with "moments of near-semi-professionalism" among the "noobish" performance. Keiichi mentally notes that he can't tell whether Shinketsu is praising or insulting him.
- Katawa Shoujo:
- When discussing grouping with Misha and Shizune, the former being the least academically gifted of all the main characters, Hisao says that Misha's handwriting is nice.
- Akira says the best part about visiting her parents' house in Scotland was that it was by the beach. She hasn't forgiven them for leaving them behind in Japan years ago.
- In A Little Lily Princess, Miss Minchin, head of the Boarding School Sara attends, is stern and strict at the best of times, and actively cruel to the servants at worst. She treats Sara well at first, but after Sara's father dies deep in debt, she forces Sara to become a servant to repay her debts. Near the end, after Sara finds out that she's once again wealthy, Miss Minchin tries to flipflop back to being "nice" to Sarah, claiming everything she did was for Sara's own good, but Sara isn't fooled for a moment. Despite this, Sara acknowledges that Miss Minchin did provide for her, concluding that "She was not kind, but she was not deliberately vicious, most of the time."
- In Paper Perjury, it soon becomes clear that Ernest Hunt, a detective, isn't very fond of the wealthy Eubank family. After hearing Oliver Curry describe Mr. Eubank as a Benevolent Boss who treats him better than most personal chefs are treated, Ernest says, "I'm glad to hear he does the bare minimum for his employees."
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
- In the second game, near the end of "Farewell, My Turnabout," the Judge does this to Matt Engarde, when it seems as though the person's guilt can no longer be proven.
Judge: To be honest, I can't think of you as a truly innocent and good person. You have done enough evil to drive a woman to suicide. But... At least on the charge of murder, it would appear you are innocent.
- In the third game, Godot, the primary prosecutorial rival, is a coffee addict who drinks 17 cups per case. However, when he discusses the rather awful restaurant Tres Bien, he has this to say about the expensive coffee.
Godot: It's special, I'll give you that. It's worth a sip just for the experience.
- In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Wesley Stickler, a college student with a knack for Feigning Intelligence, recalls a professor saying, "At least you have good eyesight, Stickler. I'll give you that," and is dumb enough to think it's genuine praise.
- In The Great Ace Attorney, shortly after Ryunosuke and Susato meet Inspector Gregson. Herlock Sholmes' famed rival.
Susato: Mr. Sholmes is equally complimentary about you, Inspector, isn't he? You've earnt his highest praise! 'Gregson is the pick of a bad lot of all the Scotland Yarders!' Those were his own words!
Ryunosuke: ...That's his highest praise?
- In the second game, near the end of "Farewell, My Turnabout," the Judge does this to Matt Engarde, when it seems as though the person's guilt can no longer be proven.
- In Shiny Days Sekai tries to defend her work ability by saying she didn't break a plate one day recently. She's so bad that when Setsuna takes over for her, she manages to be a far better employee almost instantly despite her poor social skills and initial problems, eventually earning even the praise of difficult customer Manami Katsura.
Web Animation
- 13 Cards: In Clones Make A Comic, Spade & Brolly have the best comic according to Fëdor, but that is only because the other comics aren't that much better and then Gabriel comes in with his own comic.
- In the penultimate episode of DEATH BATTLE! Season 6, Deadpool vs. The Mask Wiz and Boomstick do this on purpose to annoy Deadpool as payback for when he annoyed them in previous episodes, downplaying his strength to that of a normal human (such as his "Feats" of standing up and holding a gun) while Wade tried to point out the more impressive feats of pulling a 6 ton helicopter or kicking foes through concrete walls, he ends up getting mad when they downplayed his speed to a similar degree, pointing out that he was outrunning a plane at the time.
- Deadpool: (while Wiz and Boomstick smirk at each other) Jesus H. Christ almighty, do some research for once, you frauds!
- Homestar Runner:
- Strong Sad's character bio on an old character page (which can still be found in the museum) goes like this:
Strong Sad has been disowned by his brothers Strong Bad and Mad. On the plus side, he has good handwriting!
- In the Strong Bad Email "rock opera", an Easter egg shows the "rave reviews" for Strong Bad's rock opera include reviews like "SBEMAIL! is a triumph of some sort!" and "SBEMAIL! is better than a goat!"
- Strong Sad's character bio on an old character page (which can still be found in the museum) goes like this:
- In Puffin Forest Ben made a video about 4th Edition D&D, which is generally hated by fans. Ben wanted to make his video more upbeat but the more he wrote the more he remember just how aggravating it was to play. He consciously stops at one point to try and come up with a good thing to say about 4e and can only point to the books having good formatting.
- RWBY:
- While Ruby is grumbling to Yang on their first night at Beacon that "it's weird not knowing anyone here", Yang replies, "How about Jaune? He's...nice!" There is a short but distinct pause as she visibly searches for a positive descriptor she can use with sincerity.
- The protagonists are talking about a Faunus criminal. Weiss makes disdainful remarks about him, to which Yang replies, "They're not all bad!"
- When Nora is espousing her team's achievements, she mentions "Glynda barely yells at us any more!"
- In Stiltons In Charge 2, this is how Stilton reacts to the thinly-veiled Marvel film analogue.
Stilton: I really liked...the flashing colors...?Child: Why would you sweat so much when you said that?Stilton: ...Because of how much I loved it...?
- Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation reviews video games, and despite the Accentuate the Negative theme of his reviews, tries to come up with a few compliments.
- For FIFA 2013, though, he just had this to say:
Yahtzee: It's certainly a game.
- After spending a lot of time complaining about the story for Metroid: Other M, he praises the gameplay with faint damnation:
Yahtzee: The gameplay's infinitely stronger in that it's merely bad.
- From the same review, on the topic of the box blurb proudly announcing "Features Fully Voiced Movies!":
Yahtzee: If the only selling point you can think of for the cinematics is that they have voices, like every film made since 1927, then it's like saying "you have nice hair" when forced to compliment the appearance of a squinting, bucktoothed hunchback.
- His Judging By The Cover series discussed this when critiquing the poster for Fantastic Four (2015), along with Polish the Turd.
Yahtzee:I love it when film marketers have to fall back on "from the studio that brought you". The usual starting point in the quality-by-Association Fallacy is "from the director that brought you", followed by "from the producer that brought you", which is desperate in itself, and this is the final resort: a small handful of the guys involved in the creation of an unrelated good thing work in the same building as us, and you never know, maybe we caught some talent off the toilet seats."
- One of his categories in "Games of the Year" is "Top 5 Blandest" (reflecting So Okay, It's Average titles). In 2017, he handed the #3 spot to Destiny 2, noting that "sorry you couldn't be higher on the list, but hey, there is something appealingly ironic about coming third in a mediocrity contest."
- For FIFA 2013, though, he just had this to say:
Webcomics
- In one Boy Meets Boy strip:
Tabitha: So I'm a hideous old evil bitch from hell?
Flash: Um, I never said hideous.
Tabitha: Oh, that helps! - In Cinema Snob Reviews Frozen (a fan comic where The Cinema Snob reviews Frozen), Snob says that Dogs is still a step up from a zombie confederate film (which he considers some of the worst films he ever reviewed).
- The doctor's announcement after Dominic Deegan's physical exams in the 2011-01-06 strip:
- In one Dumb_RWBY comic (later turned into a RWBY Chibi skit), Weiss is writing to her sister about Ruby. However, because Ruby is, in order, using a chicken on her scythe to play with her Precious Puppy and eating a cookie through her nose, all Weiss can say is that Ruby's "Interesting" and "A person." This would explain Winter's "How appropriately underwhelming" remark when she met Ruby in the series' Volume 3.
- The Elusive Dr. Bowman of Freefall inverts this. He remarks that the Ecosystems Unlimited chief at his facility is "Dumber than von Neumann," and that he can't think more than five moves ahead in chess. Given that the former was one of the most brilliant men of the twentieth century, and the latter is well beyond most amateur Chess players, most humans would take those as backhanded compliments. Of course, given the doctor is a brilliant Neurologist and AI specialist, it's possible he still means them as insults.
- In General Protection Fault, after Ki recalls how her former fiancé Sam had apologized for trying to rape her, she says, "I'll give him credit for seeming sincere," but mentions that she couldn't forgive him and that she called off the engagement.
- Girl Genius:
- When Martellus usurps the throne of the Storm King from his cousin Tarvek (mostly by killing anyone who tries to take it from him), numerous factions scheme to put Tarvek back in power. Nobody really has any idea what kind of king Tarvek would be or expects anything particularly impressive from him, but everyone agrees he can't possibly be worse than Martellus.
Agatha: Am I the only one who actually likes Tarvek?
Krosp: I like him. He thinks like a cat! - Inverted between Tarvek and Gil: knowing that Tarvek would take any opportunity to point out Gil's faults to him, the fact that he actually delivers faint praise in the midst of a bad situation is a great sign.
Tarvek: Well, if what you've told me is accurate, I must reluctantly conclude that the collapse of the Empire is not your fault.
Gil: I— that is— coming from you— that's very good to hear.
- When Martellus usurps the throne of the Storm King from his cousin Tarvek (mostly by killing anyone who tries to take it from him), numerous factions scheme to put Tarvek back in power. Nobody really has any idea what kind of king Tarvek would be or expects anything particularly impressive from him, but everyone agrees he can't possibly be worse than Martellus.
- From Homestuck, regarding Jack Noir
GC: K4RK4T, H3S 4 J3RK!
GC: H3 H4S ST4BB3D YOU ON MOR3 TH4N ON3 OCC4S1ON!
CG: SOME OF THOSE STABBINGS WERE ACCIDENTAL!
GC: >8|
CG: OK, WELL I KNOW FOR A FACT THE THIRD TIME WAS ACCIDENTAL.- Another one from Jane, comparing build grist to the fruit Gushers they look like:
But unlike Gushers which serve many practical purposes like inducing vomiting and simulating the experience of eating plump insects, these things are totally useless!
- Another one from Jane, comparing build grist to the fruit Gushers they look like:
- Lackadaisy has Rocky and company returning from a whiskey run with their car nearly destroyed. Was the alcohol they snagged from a coffin in a graveyard worth it?
Miss M.: Well, it's better than getting shot...
- Litterbox Comics: In "Year in Review", Vincent asks Fran if he's been a good boy that year. Fran struggles to praise him by just calling him a "boy", but he sees through it and admits he doesn't want to be a "good" boy anymore so that Santa can give him coal to start a fire.
- The Order of the Stick
- Soon Kim's final appraisal of Miko's deeds as "You have done... adequately. By destroying my Gate, you have ensured it can no longer be used for evil purposes. You have fulfilled your oath to defend this one gate... technically." As Miko considered her deeds to be the carrying-out of a divine higher destiny to save the world, it's pretty obvious this wasn't what she expected... and as they were the result of paranoid delusions and directly led to the Big Bad escaping, it's similarly obvious that Soon is trying to be as nice as possible about it.
- When Crystal and Haley first met each other, the nicest things they could say about each other were insincere compliments about the other's boots and haircut, respectively. The two have wanted to kill each other literally from the moment they first met.
- A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic features a "what they say versus what they mean" when talking to foragers (people who try to find food from natural environments). For instance, if a forager says something is edible, that doesn't mean it tastes good. If they say you can make tea out of it, that really just means it's not poisonous. If it's a traditional winter food, that means people ate it when they couldn't have anything else. And if they say it needs to be cooked just right, that means it will kill you if you eat it in any other way.
- A prison tattooist in Something*Positive has the slogan "Come see Edna! You won't get hepatitis!"
- This strip, though Davan probably meant it as a compliment.
Davan: That's not a half bad idea.
Rory: Wow, thanks. As long as we're offering limp compliments, you're a passable parent.
Davan: Thanks! I almost try.
- This strip
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: Sigrun, trying to describe Mikkel's accuracy with a gun as nicely as possible, goes for "not too bad for a blind person."
- Unsounded: When Lemuel tells Mikaila she has to leave the army before the big assault, he tries to reassure her about her performance by telling her that she's just as good a soldier as her male counterpart Mason. He meant it as a genuine reassurance, but Mikaila, who had witnessed Mason screwing up and having to be saved during the last operation, isn't convinced that's a good thing.
- xkcd:
- One comic inverts this neatly with the UNIX 2038 problem.
- Online Communities 2 does this with its Alt Text by way of Overly Narrow Superlative.
- One comic inverts this neatly with the UNIX 2038 problem.
Web Original
- Online newspaper The Daily describes talking-point-turned-politician Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher in their roundup of bad candidates of 2012:
Joe the Unlicensed Pipe Fitter wrote a book, which was hailed by critics as "consisting of words" and "something that now exists".
- Gamespot has pros and cons for every game.
- For Hour of Victory the pro is "Thankfully, no one is forcing you to play this game."
- For the Deal or No Deal adaptation, the "pro" which also shows up in the cons section, is that "There are voice samples from Howie Mandel"
- For Hour of Victory
- Rotten Tomatoes' critics' consensus for the film Vampires Suck by the Seltzer and Friedberg duo, who are notorious for making unfunny spoof films, reads: "Witlessly broad and utterly devoid of laughs, Vampires Suck represents a slight step forward for the Friedberg-Seltzer team." (Keep in mind, the film's score is a 4%.)
- Seanbaby parodies this when talking about Superfriends. He praises Lex Luthor for his ability to try to make every member of the Legion of Doom sound cool when he makes a roll call.
Seanbaby: Sure, it's easy to compliment Bizarro and Sinestro, but what the fuck would you say about Toyman? "The amazing Bizarro! And next to him, the pretty-good-at-ping-pong Toyman! The... talking Grodd! Followed by the... the... followed by SCARECROW!"
- SF Debris: has come up with everything from recommending Star Trek: Insurrection as a Star Trek film for being the shortest, to praising the episode "Human Error" for being less awful than "Unimatrix Zero".
Chuck: But then, so's a test pattern.''
- Smogon is fond of this, when dealing with Joke Character Pokemon. Particular examples include noting Telepathy Wobbuffet to be "easily the best death fodder in the tier", the reason to use Castform being that it is "the PU Pokemon with the most diverse colors and coolest STAB move", or Luvdisc with Charm becoming "a very sturdy physical wall able to survive two Caterpie Tackles."
- Muppet fan site ToughPigs reviewed the Rich Little episode of The Muppet Show, and they clearly didn't enjoy the guest star, saying that the episode's best joke is Kermit calling Rich Little a "master impressionist."
- Unshaved Mouse: A Running Gag is that he refers to less-than-stellar child actors as "a very nice young gentleman/lady doing his/her best."
- From one of the "Bats vs. Bolts" reviews:
But there’s no getting around it, I, Frankenstein is a staggeringly bad film, and leagues worse than Dracula Untold. Cunning and savvy reader that you are, you will notice that is not the same thing as saying that Dracula Untold is good. - In Worm, Gregor the Snail has this to say about Cauldron, a group of Well Intentioned Extremists who have explained that they plan to save the world.
I would never question your morals. I know you have none.
- The Wikipedia page for Gotti claims "Gotti was panned by critics, who lamented the writing, aesthetics, and performances, although its use of makeup received some praise."
- In this Defector Media article disparaging the 2020 Dallas Cowboys, when asked to say something positive about the team, writer Drew Magary claims that wide receiver "CeeDee Lamb has an adorable name."
- One article on the AV Club noted that the best thing about the Tiger Electronics R-Zone was that it cost thirty dollars. It went on to name it "a better fashion statement than a gaming console"... before noting that the R-Zone looked incredibly stupid to wear, calling out this trope by name.
- In Pitchfork's FinalFantasy retrospective, he gives a positive and negative for all the playable characters in the eight entry. As he doesn't much like this game, this trope comes into effect for some of them. For instance, for Zell:
Positive: Probably the most likable of the six main characters...Negative: ...which is really kind of sad.
- Competitive fighting game sites like Super Combo and Dustloop feature a "pros and cons" section near the start of any given character analysis. Naturally, sometimes this forces them to assign "pros" to a character widely seen as a Joke Character or Low-Tier Letdown, which is often used for jokes. (This can also be inverted when discussing "cons" for a character widely seen as a Game-Breaker or High-Tier Scrappy.) For instance, the listing for BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger describes Iron Tager's sole strong point thusly:
Can Still Win: As long as you have better footsies, better pressure, better reads, better neutral, better defense, better patience, better confirms, better punishes, better "combos", and generally outplay your opponent in every conceivable way consistently throughout the entire match, you can take a single round as Tager.
Real Life
- Abraham Lincoln reportedly asked Congressman Thaddeus Stevens about the honesty of Stevens' fellow Pennsylvanian Simon Cameron, who was being considered for the position of Secretary of War. Stevens replied, "I do not believe he would steal a red hot stove."note (Lincoln ended up appointing Cameron anyway, as he was too important - as a Senator for the powerful state of Pennsylvania - but punted him to the post of Minister to Russia as soon as it became clear he was no good.)
- In colloquial English (as seen in some examples below), describing something without any kinds of adjectives is an often-humorous way of saying something is bad. For example, if someone asks you how it's going and you say "it's going!", then it's sure not going well (although also not so badly you wish to complain more strongly). "That's certainly a choice" is likewise not a compliment about someone's decision-making skills, and so on.
- Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" commends the many white supporters who "languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as “dirty nigger-lovers"... then, after showing disappointment with the white church establishment, he praised some members for allowing black congregations to worship in their churches on special occasions.
- Rick Perry, long-time and quite an unpopular governor of Texas (later U.S. Secretary of Energy 2017-2019), became known as "Governor Good-Hair" for this very reason. Due to the many reasons he was disliked, everyone agreed that his hair was his finest point.
- A lawsuit against Apple's iPad by Samsung was decided in Samsung's favor by the judge due to Samsung's Galaxy Tab product being "not as cool."
- In a review of a train set in a modelers' magazine, the author spent two paragraphs of a two-page feature describing the cardboard box that the set came in, praising its corrugated walls and high crush strength. The actual model got no such commendation.
- Comedian Lee Camp has pointed out Oklahoma invokes this trope on themselves with the saying/motto "Oklahoma is OK."
"That's all you've got? It's a whole state. Something there has to be better than 'okay'."
- This article talks about the Oklahoma House Republicans on the Common Education Committee that voted to ban advanced placement US history courses, because they think it shows “what is bad about America”. The author warns them: If they insist to make an Orwellian Retcon on Oklahoma's story, they will Un-person the entire state because they have very few things to be proud about:
In its “good” history, Oklahoma can boast being the basis of a Rogers and Hammerstein musical and the home of Oral Roberts University. But if Oklahomans were to purge all their local stories which reflect “what is bad about America”, their history pages would be wiped as white as a Tulsa klansman’s hood.- Comedian Anthony Clark also mocked Oklahoma's motto, acting out the hypothetical meeting during which it was voted on, where "Billy Bob" read out a list of candidates such as "Oklahoma: Some people say we don't suck!" and "Oklahoma: Trees are made of wood!"
- This article
- A fairly popular anecdote from the final days of Soviet Russia talks about a group of Japanese businessmen being given the grand tour. As they are shown each sight, their only comment is "you have wonderful children." Factories? "You have very beautiful children". Grand new buildings? "Your children are very well behaved." Brand new cars? "J-Just wonderful children in general." When finally cornered and pressed to comment on something besides the children, they go "You really have absolutely wonderful children here. But everything you build using your hands is TERRIBLE." The Russian guides really should have been satisfied with their faint praise.
- In the preface to his short story collection East And West, W. Somerset Maugham commented that a disconcertingly large number of critics described his stories as "competent."
"Now on the face of it I might have thought this laudatory, for to do a thing competently is certainly more deserving of praise than to do it incompetently, but the adjective has been used in a disparaging sense...There is evidently something that a number of people do not like in my stories and it is this they try to express when they damn them with the faint praise of competence."
- When Hardanger Fiddle players tried to compliment each other, faint praise might occur when the master fiddlers had to say something nice to the less gifted. "The Miller Boy", reckoned to be the greatest fiddler of the nineteenth century, made this one a classic:
You are pretty good. In fact, you are much better than a person who never touched a fiddle.
- The Jerkass practice of "negging." The idea is to shake the confidence of the negee (usually a woman one wants to pursue sex and/or a relationship with) enough to get her to seek his validation and approval. This can also be done with advertising: play on the potential consumer's insecurities (about their looks or status or whatever else)... and imply that your product will make everything better.
- Probably unintentional, but John Gummer said this about Margaret Thatcher after her death:
"She had beautiful hands and lovely ankles, and she knew precisely how to use both."
- In a 2014 interview, Aretha Franklin was asked her opinions about several contemporary female pop singers:
Adele: "Young singer, good singer."Alicia Keys: "Young performer, good writer-producer."Taylor Swift: "Okay... great gowns, beautiful gowns."
- Most comments about the quality of the pizza from the Little Caesars chain will revolve around how cheap it is, or how fast it is. To quote one user on Twitter:
Little Caesars: It's hot and it's ready!
Customer: Is it good?
Little Caesars: It's HOT! And it's READY! - Tourists in Japan who can hold basic conversations in Japanese may be complimented with "nihongo jouzu!" (translated: "Your Japanese is good!") The stereotype is that this is a backhanded compliment given only to people with a flawed grasp of the language; the ones who are fully fluent won't be complimented in the same way, and it can come off as condescending to the self-aware. It's sometimes said among people learning Japanese as a second language that you know your Japanese is actually decent when the Japanese stop complimenting it.
- "It subverted our expectations" has colloquially become a Stealth Insult online, thanks to the rather contentious The Last Jedi and how it, for better or for worse, went out of its way to drop plot points established in the previous film or have character twists for the sake of twists. Basically if you're thoroughly unimpressed by a twist or the direction a work has taken, well at least it subverted your expectations right?
- This is the idea behind "The Mendoza Line" in baseball. It was named after shortstop Mario Mendoza and his lifetime batting average of .215, where anything below .200 is considered bad. In other words, he was the most famously perfectly mediocre batter in baseball history. Therefore, saying someone is "above the Mendoza Line" is not to say they're a bad hitter, but you're not saying much to their credit either.
- This sarcastic review of the 2019 film version of Cats on Twitter:
CATS is undeniably a film. Brimming with a score, cinematography, and performances, it’s a motion picture made by a team of filmmakers that can irrefutably be described as existent. Truly one of the films 2019 has to offer.
- The comments section for "Tone Deaf" by Eminem is brimming with this.
- Phillip III of Spain was a member of the notoriously messed up Hapsburg royal family. The Spanish Hapsburg line was particularly inbred and subject to a host of maladies, and Phillip III's history reads like a laundry list of genetic collapses waiting to happen. The most positive statement made of him is that "his only virtue appeared to reside in a total absence of vice." While he wasn't a drunkard or a glutton or a lech or a tyrant, he was also about as much use in statecraft as the palace's potted plants. Possibly the most telling factor is is his royal title, "The Pious", suggesting that the best his contemporaries could say was that at least he did not blaspheme God in any way (other than by existing as such a pitiable genetic wreckage of a man).
- Don't Worry Darling seemed to inspire a huge competition among film critics over who could come up with the most lukewarm endorsement of the film.
"Not a disaster" (Ann Hornaday, Washington Post)
"Intermittently entertaining" (Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair)
"Competent" (Bilge Eberi, Vulture) - In this viral review, Marilyn Hagerty praised an Olive Garden in Grand Forks, North Dakota for the decor, the service, the large portions, and the low prices... but as some eventually noticed, the nicest thing the reviewer said about the food was that it was warm.
- On the job board website Indeed, the possible ratings for assessment tests, in order of best to worst, are: Expert, Highly Proficient, Proficient, Familiar and...Completed.
- Joe Biden's statement on Henry Kissinger's death. What seems to be praise at first glance are actually neutral statements like "we often disagreed" and "he continued to offer his views." A full analysis can be found here.
- Manga author Ryoko Kui (of Delicious in Dungeon fame) put out a piece of art for Famitsu showing various elves from western video games, along with written remarks on them. It's really not hard to pick out her favorites—characters like Camellia, Jaethal, and Shadowheart have blatantly romantic comments or compliments of their looks, while others end up with compliments of their clothes or neutral facts about their characters. Solas gets a remark about how he has "charmed many players", with no word on whether that includes Kui. Astarion gets the worst of it, as he is simply described as "popular", while also getting a small piece that looks to have been traced from the box art. Ancano, a member of the Thalmor, seems to receive this treatment, too, as he gets a comment saying, "Thalmor clothes are cool," which says nothing good about the one wearing them.
- Infamously, when Chevy Chase returned to host Saturday Night Live for the first time after leaving, he behaved so much like himself that Bill Murray got in a fistfight with him. As the two were pulled apart, Bill yelled "Medium Talent!" - a faint praise that functions on two levels. It's both an admission that Chase could not reasonably be called entirely talentless, but also, medium is neither rare nor well done.
- In professional theater, a response of "that was very entertaining" to an audition means "that sucked, and you won't be hearing from us again."
- Napoléon Bonaparte had this to say to his brother Louis, who he had appointed King of Holland, when the Dutch people named him "Louis the Good".
Brother, when they say of some king or other that he is good, it means that he has failed in his rule. note
- A review for The Mandalorian And Grogu contained the line, "shot to beautifully fill an entire IMAX screen." This line was put in the trailer.
