re: Why Do People Say "I've never had bad meal

Must be some American English holdover from frontier/Wild West times.......

quote:

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Do people use that phrase to actually praise a restaurant or is it a comment that should be taken literally?

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I think to make a determination, you must read or listen to any other information given. If no other info is given, I'm going to assume the restaurant is just okay.

I might say "I've never had anything bad there" about a restaurant I find to be just good or average in it's class of restaurants. I really enjoy R'evolution. All of my meals there have been excellent, so if I were recommending it to someone else I wouldn't say I've never had a bad meal there. The converse is "I've only had "good" meals there". That doesn't describe my feelings about the restaurant, obviously. I've only had excellent meals there.

It's not really a big deal. I just notice it quite often here when someone really enjoys a restaurant and it doesn't make sense to me. I read it again last night in the Vegas thread. Seemed like an odd comment from the poster after he described it as pretty fantastic in the paragraph above the comment.

Just an interesting (to me) observation. "Food" for thought.

Having had bad meals at really good resturants leads me to think that the saying is fine. If you've eaten at a place multiple times, and it has met your expectations with each visit, than saying "I've never had a bad meal there" is quite appropriate.