Phraseology and Culture in English

Reasonably well
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collocations reasonably bad and reasonably badly are infelicitous and are 
not recorded in COBUILD
.
As I have argued throughout this paper, however, reasonably in its ad-
adjectival use is not simply a degree adverb, unrelated to its use as a word of 
positive intellectual assessment (that is, its ad-verbal use). Reasonably as a 
degree adverb, too, praises a certain way of thinking. No such praise, and 
no such way of thinking are reflected in the use of the French word raison-
nablement.
Before moving to a closer examination of the Anglo ‘cultural scripts re-
flected in the various uses of the word reasonably, and in particular, in the 
collocation reasonably well, I would note that the ad-verbal use of raison-
nablement also differs in meaning from the ad-verbal use of reasonably,
although here, the differences are more subtle. Consider, for example, the 
following sentence: 
On ne nourrit pas des animaux herbivores avec de la viande, pas plus qu’on 
ne peut raisonnablement nourrir les poulets avec de l’huile de vidange! 
[‘One doesn’t feed herbivore animals with meat, any more than one can rea-
sonably feed chickens with waste oil.’] 
The English translation which glosses raisonnablement as reasonably sounds 
strange, because in English, reasonably (in its ad-verbal use) suggests ‘mod-
eration’ – either in an epistemic sense (i.e. in one’s claims to knowledge) or 
in what one wants, especially in relation to other people: one can “reasona-
bly suppose (assume, expect, etc.)” or “reasonably request (require, offer, 
etc.)”. Since there is no sense of ‘moderation’ in the sentence about feeding 
chickens waste oil, the sentence sounds odd. 
As one reads through all the material with raisonnablement in the French 
section of the COBUILD, many sentences seem to be easily translatable 
with reasonably, but again and again one comes across sentences in which 
it would not be entirely felicitous. For example: 
“Les camions ne peuvent plus raisonnablement passer par ce tunnel”, a in-
sisté M.Chirac. 
[‘Trucks can no longer “reasonably” pass through this tunnel’, insisted Mr. 
Chirac [i.e. it would be foolish to do so].’] 
… il correspond à un schéma de comportement heureusement répandu, celui 
de l’homme d’action, que l’on ne saurait raisonnablement condamner. 
[‘… it corresponds to a pattern of behaviour, that of a man of action, which 
is luckily wide-spread, and which one couldn’t “reasonably” condemn [i.e. 
it would be foolish to do so].’] 

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Anna Wierzbicka 
… elle avait menti. Et qu’en conséquence on ne saurait raisonnablement
confier un B-52 à une menteuse. 
[‘… she had lied. And consequently, one couldn’t “reasonably” entrust a B-
52 to a liar [i.e. it would be foolish to do so].’] 
As these examples suggest, to do something “raisonnablement” means to 
do something, roughly speaking, ‘in accordance with reason’, without any 
implication of epistemic or pragmatic ‘moderation’. More precisely, one 
could propose the following paraphrase: 
on ne peut pas faire X raisonnablement = 
one can’t do X “raisonnablement” = 
if someone can think well they will think about it like this: I can’t do X 
In the French NSM, this explication would look as follows: 
on ne peut pas faire X raisonnablement = 
si quelqu’un pense bien cette personne pensera comme ça: 
je ne peux pas faire X
Reasonably, on the other hand, always implies some ‘moderation’ – and 
this includes the collocation reasonably well.
Thus, while the idea of ‘thinking well’ links reasonably with raison-
nablement, the idea of ‘moderation’ in one’s attitude sets reasonably apart 
from its putative French counterpart. Once again, we must conclude that the 
cultural ideology of ‘wise moderation’ is embedded in the English language, 
and is not embedded in French. The absence of the collocation raisonnab-
lement bien in the French corpus, and the high frequency of reasonably
well in the English one, is another manifestation of this cultural difference: 
the stance of ‘wise moderation’ is an Anglo stance.