英文阅读：Faint praise
Reader question:In this headline – Warne has faint praise for Gilly – what does "faint
praise" mean?
My comments:
Praise is good. Faint praise is not. Something faint is weak
(faint-hearted) and difficult to see (faint lines) or hear (a faint voice).
Faint praises are weak and unconvincing. It shows that the person who is giving
the praises is half-hearted. He's not sincere. He's unwilling to give an
unreserved compliment.
Here's a story. It is said that at a funeral ceremony, the presiding
priest, who did not know the deceased personally and obviously had done little
homework, asked people from the congregation to stand up and sing praises for
the dead. After long periods of silence, someone said: "His brother was
worse!"
Ah well, that's pretty faint a praise, isn't it, for someone dead.
Sometimes paint praises are so tough on the ear that they sound more like a
damning comment than something supportive. Hence the popular term – damn with
faint praise.
In damning someone or something with faint praise, one shows that they are
very bad by praising them very little. He may appear to be praising, but
actually he is condemning them.
For instance an art critic may damn a painter with faint praise by saying,
for example, that the picture looks so simple and innocent that any six-year-old
can appreciate it – and perhaps draw it themselves.
Got it?
Here are a few media examples.
1. Faint praise from an impossible captain
Gordon Brown's moral compass has broken down. The needle still moves, but
something inside the fine old Calvinist instrument has gone haywire, with the
result that the Prime Minister has lost his bearings.
...
At about the sixth time of asking, the Prime Minister was prevailed upon to
say: "Of course I've got confidence in Harriet Harman." He said it twice, but by
then it just sounded as if he was damning her with faint praise.
- Telegraph.co.uk, November 29, 2007
2. Rumsfeld's faint praise for Tenet
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, damned the outgoing CIA director
with the faintest of praise yesterday after suggesting better intelligence might
have thwarted the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Without mentioning George Tenet by name, Mr Rumsfeld - as is often his
habit - couched his criticism in the form of a question: "Is it a terrible
failure we did not have the intelligence to prevent the September 11
attacks?"
- Independent.co.uk, June 5, 2004
3. Critics damn Madonna film
Critics damned Madonna's first feature film with faint praise on Thursday
and suggested her career behind the camera might be as successful as her
acting.
"Filth & Wisdom" had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on
Wednesday and early reviews agreed a poor-to-average movie was saved by its
exuberance.
...
James Christopher of the Times, in a review billed as "exclusive", was
among the film's biggest fans, giving it three stars out of five.
"What saves the film is its sheer exuberance, and, of course, the music,"
he said. "Altmanesque would be stretching the compliment too far, but 'Filth and
Wisdom' shows Madonna has real potential as a film director."
- Reuters, February 14, 2008
4. The all-new News at Ten reviewed
City University head of journalism and former ITV news staffer Adrian Monck
gives "an old fashioned critique of an old fashioned show", saying that the
story balance was too crime heavy and the one thing missing was a sense of
humour.
"There's not much not to like here - which isn't to damn with faint praise,
but simply to point out that with news viewers the less you can do to drive them
away, the more will stay. But like battery chickens, the odd surprise is good
for them."
- blogs.pressgazette.co.uk, January 15, 2008
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