Talk:Damning with faint praise

When I read this entry, I found the "Usage" section hard to follow. I tried to clean it up a bit, but I wonder if it needs more work. The one example there, while interesting, doesn't seem warranted. Paxfeline (talk) 08:43, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

An Element of Cultural Literacy?

The article currently states that "Knowing this idiomatic label or description for criticizing someone or something indirectly by giving a slighting compliment is seen as an element of cultural literacy." This seems to be predicated solely on the idiom's inclusion in the book The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, which includes the phrase "damn with faint praise" alongside hundreds of other expressions and concepts and doesn't call any special attention to it. By the same logic, being familiar with other entries in the book—such as Crazy Horse, coral reefs, and dark matter—is also an element of cultural literacy, but we don't find that included in the articles I just referenced. Seeing as how it comes out of left field in this article, and given the shaky justification for it, would anyone object to removing the above mentioned phrase about "cultural literacy"? Tigercompanion25 (talk) 19:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Forgive me, I fear I did not make myself sufficiently clear. My objection to the sentence in question is that I strongly doubt that familiarity with this idiom is seen as an indicator of cultural literacy—I suspect almost no one has even considered the matter—and I don't think that the claim that it is seen this way is borne out by the source used in this article. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 19:24, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

As there were no objections, I have gone ahead and removed the offending sentence. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 04:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Dumbing Wikipedia Down Repeatedly Hello, Tigercompanion Well, you won your removal edit because Wikipedia has a system by which only some fraction of what is, can be validated. The comment you removed does not come "out of left field." I move in circles where knowing what "damning with faint praise" means is absolutely seen as an indication of cultural literacy. These circles have included BYU English Dept, Univ of Utah English Dept, reading groups at Congregational Church Arizona, discussion group in Bay Area, book groups in Salt Lake City. This is a sophisticated phrase. My unsophisticated friends don't use it. If one did, s/he would be by that alone seen as more thoughtful than I previously realized. Only this week a Youtube speaker used the phrase and I was surprised to see she knew it fit her situation exactly. Since I know of nowhere this has been written about to be quoted, we dumb down Wikipedia for the 1001st time.Moabalan (talk) 17:38, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Examples

It would be great if there were more examples (about 5) 24.163.56.132 (talk) 13:56, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I concur - and I wish they were stronger examples. The idea is that the person is searching for the best thing to say about someone/something and the best thing they can come up with is pretty weak. "Do I think Joe is attractive? Well, he has all his limbs." --73.109.61.253 (talk) 00:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. The best I can say about the examples is that they are better than nothing. Without more context, background knowledge or explanation it is not clear why the Bush quote is faint praise. I am not convinced that the Cauz and Montgomery quotes are examples of faint praise at all, and the Grice quote could do with some explanation. 82.69.227.118 (talk) 10:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Move to Wiktionary?

A proposal has been raised to move this article to Wiktionary, and then KAP03 changed this article to a redirect without migrating any of its content. I just undid that redirect, with the intent to preserve the content of this article while the issue is being deliberated. It is my opinion that this article's content is worthwhile and the article should be preserved and extended rather than moved to Wiktionary, but if it is moved, we should preserve as much of this content as would make sense on Wiktionary. "Six by nine. Forty two." (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Possible source

I seem to remember some earlier author wrote "And with faint praises one another damn", which Pope may have picked up and improved. I will try to solidify this.  Seadowns (talk) 10:24, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Dumbing Wikipedia Down Repeatedly

Hello, Tigercompanion Well, you won your removal edit because Wikipedia has a system by which only some fraction of what is, can be validated. I move in circles where knowing what "damning with faint praise" means absolutely seen as an indication of cultural literacy. These circles have included BYU, reading groups at Congregational Church Arizona, discussion group in Bay Area, book groups in Salt Lake City. Only this week a Youtube speaker used the phrase and I was surprised to see she knew it fit her situation exactly. Since I know of nowhere this has been written about to be quoted, we dumb down Wikipedia for the 1001th time, with your eager help.Moabalan (talk) 17:38, 11 May 2021 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moabalan (talk • contribs)