not brilliant

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navi tasan

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Is this sentence correct:

1-It was sort of not brilliant.


I think it is, but in it, "not brilliant" seems to form a single unit. It is as if it is "not-brilliant".
Could I be right?

Gratefully,
Navi.
 

LeTyan

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-------NOT A TEACHER------

I suppose you could say it in a casual setting but I wouldn't say or write something like that in a test, especially an English one.
 

emsr2d2

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Is this sentence correct:

1-It was sort of not brilliant.


I think it is, but in it, "not brilliant" seems to form a single unit. It is as if it is "not-brilliant".
Could I be right?

Gratefully,
Navi.

You're right that "not brilliant" is being used as an adjective. It's definitely not standard English but I can imagine hearing it. If I were trying not to be too rude about something, I might describe it as "not brilliant" to show that perhaps it wasn't as good as I had expected, but it was still good. Note though that that is just my take on it, it doesn't have a standard definition.
 

5jj

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Note though that that is just my take on it, it doesn't have a standard definition.
As a definition, it was, well like, OK, but, you know, sort of like, not brilliant....

... like.

;-)
 
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