Phraseology and Culture in English

8.
Reasonable as reasonably good
Let us consider the following sentences from COBUILD: 
I am a reasonable left-handed player, with a good short game. 
The pacey wing, who also enjoyed a reasonable afternoon as goalkicker rat-
tled up 19 points with flanker Markus Van Greunen the other tryscorer. 
1986 was a reasonable year and the picturesque Erden village had produced 
a stylish wine from late harvested grapes. 
Clearly, a “reasonable left-handed player” does not mean ‘a reasonable 
person’: reasonable means here, roughly, ‘reasonably good’. A judgment is 
involved in all these examples, but it is the speaker’s judgment, and it is a 
judgment concerning positive evaluation. 
If we compare the meaning of a reasonable year with other common 
collocations including the adjective reasonable, such as for example rea-
sonable force, reasonable amount or a reasonable doubt (diverse as the 
latter are), it will be clear that it differs from them all. The word reasonable
always seems to carry with it some reference to a positive evaluation, but 
this evaluation does not always fit in the same way in the semantic structure 
of different phrases. For example, reasonable force is not exactly ‘a good 
force’, and a reasonable doubt, ‘a good doubt’. A reasonable year, on the 
other hand, is (all things considered), ‘a good year’. I would propose the 
following explication for reasonable in this sense: 
reasonable year / location / attendance / health etc = 
a. when I think about it I think like this: I can say: “it is good” 
b. I think that if someone else can think well they can think the same 
c. I don’t want to say more 
d. I don’t want to say: “it is very good” 
e. at the same time I don’t want to think that because I don’t want to say “it is 
very good” I can’t say “it is good”
In most respects, this explication is parallel to those of a reasonable 
time and a reasonable amount (cf. Wierzbicka in press a). Here as there, the 
speaker’s attitude is guarded, cautious, deliberately restrained. Here, too, the 
speaker is weighing the words carefully and avoiding what could be seen as 
exaggeration (“very”). Here, too, the speaker uses the model of a hypo-
thetical person who thinks well, and whose expectations and requirements 
are consciously limited. And here, too, the speaker is willing to see the 
situation in a positive light (“this is good”). 

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64
Anna Wierzbicka 
And yet there does seem to be one respect in which the semantic struc-
ture of reasonably good diverges from that of a reasonable time or a rea-
sonable amount: in the case of reasonably good, there seems to be an addi-
tional implication that the speaker is consciously choosing to be satisfied 
with something that is less than very good. 
Arguably, the idea that it is good, and wise, not to want or expect too 
much was linked with the British philosophy of reasonableness from its 
inception. When Locke asserted that the limited certainty which can be 
derived from empirical knowledge is sufficient for ordinary purposes, he 
was effectively advocating this very attitude. 
I have already quoted Porter’s (2000: 60) observation that “Locke’s 
truth claims were models of modesty. […] Man was a limited being, and 
reason just sufficient for human purposes.” But although reason was only 
just sufficient, it was nonetheless sufficient. In fact, for Locke the aware-
ness that human knowledge was only “probable knowledge” and that hu-
man access to truth was limited was not necessarily a bad thing, for it pro-
vided a protection against dogmatic thinking and intolerance. Thus, his 
ideal of reasonableness went hand in hand with his ideal of toleration 
(“those who have not thoroughly examined to the bottom of their own ten-
ets […] are unreasonable in imposing that as truth on other men’s belief 
which they themselves had not searched into”, Locke 1953: 374). It was 
reasonable not to want and expect too much in one’s quest for truth and 
knowledge, and it was reasonable to be satisfied with that which can be 
reached. The aura of wise and contented self-limitation became associated, 
in one way or another, with most, perhaps all, the uses of the word reason-
able. To recall a characteristic example from the COBUILD corpus: 
To have been anything but satisfied would have been highly unreasonable, 
and Alistair, for a professor, was a rather reasonable man. 
To say that something is “reasonably good” is to imply that, while it per-
haps is not “very good”, it would be “unreasonable” to expect more or to 
declare oneself dissatisfied. 
Similarly, reasonably well is felt to be “less” than very well, as the fol-
lowing example illustrates: 
A brief survey of organizations that are performing reasonably well or even 
very well indicate that there is a wide range of leadership styles that are 
conducive to high performance. 
But it is “unreasonable” to expect that things will be “perfect”. It is “rea-
sonable” to accept them as “good” even if they are not “very good”: 

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Reasonably well
65
While the measure certainly isn’t perfect, it does a reasonably good job of 
indicating the type of responsiveness you can expect from a stock. 
In fact, reasonably good is felt to be a little less than good, and reasonably
well a little less than well:
Can you say anything about what it is about the goods in Marks and 
Spencer’s that makes you head for it? One knows that they’re normally rea-
sonably priced and reasonably well made. And also reasonably well – more 
than reasonably, they tend to be well designed. 
But if something is a little less than “good” one can still “reasonably” ac-
cept it as “good”. Similarly, if something is done less than “well”, one can 
“reasonably” say (and think) that it is done “well”. It is “reasonable” not to 
demand or expect too much.