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From today's W.A.D.:
This week's guest wordsmith, Dr. Mardy Grothe (drmgrothe@aol.com), writes:
...
In an oxymoron (like pretty ugly, old news, or sweet sorrow), words that are incompatible or that contradict one another are joined together in a way that ends up making a lot of sense....
This got me to thinking: how have we come to use pretty as an adverb in this sense?
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veteran
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veteran
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Pretty < ME prety 'clever, fine, handsome' < OE prættig 'cunning' < prætt 'trick' (cf. pratfall). Very 'truly'; rather 'quickly'; quite 'clear, free'. There's nearly and pretty near from proximity. Somebody can be pretty far gone. And can leave pretty soon. I think that pretty ugly became popular because it is an oxymoron.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pretty as an adverb, meaning to a considerable extent dates back to 1565 according to the COED.
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How about fairly?
... and who's this coed??
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journeyman
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journeyman
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who is this coed?I dunno...sounds kind of sketchy to me...but she must be pretty ugly herself to know so much about the matter... 
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Carpal Tunnel
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sounds kind of sketch
Not in the least bit sketchy, just all squoz down so you need a microscope to appreciate her depth of knowledge.
For those of y'all who really don't know, COED is the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the edition that has everything in the full up bookshelf wide edition but shrunk down to four pages per page and stuck in to two volumes.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Isn't that the Compact Edition? My Concise Oxford Dictionary (affectionately known as COD)is a separate work based on the OED.
Bingley
Bingley
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Yup. Compact. My bad. Thanks, Bingley.
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journeyman
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journeyman
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A jolie-laide is a woman "whose ugliness is part of her charm" (Chambers). I've just looked up my French dictionary and discovered I was wrong all this time, as I had thought jolie meant "jolly" as well as "pretty". I liked the idea that she was both pretty ugly and jolly ugly.
(I can't think of a good laide pun, sorry.)
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I can't think of a good laide pun, sorry
Thank you for your restraint.
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veteran
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(I can't think of a good laide pun, sorry.)
Well, better laide than laie. Au lait! quoth the picador. Laissez faire sez me. My ancient Cassel's also glossed laide as 'a plain girl; a naughty girl'.
Laid back and lying down ...
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Hi Jenet,
If we say joliment laide it does mean that the woman is jolly ugly. Jolly as the synonym for "very" not "gleeful."
I'm not sure they use it the same in France, but it is used this way here in Québec.
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