关于"That's an interesting idea." @ Riven

[大伯刘]

支持Riven谦听则明的态度，但大伯还是想谈谈这句话的实际含义。

有人说这句话总是表示嘲讽或者否定。在大伯我的越来越健忘的记忆里，在美国和加拿大这么多年听到这句话的环境确实是有语气不友好的，而且不少，但也确实有过语气友好的或者中性的，它本身并不总是表示嘲讽或否定的。

于是，大伯我就找到了这个：http://ell.stackexchange.com/questi...ing-idea-necessarily-encouraging-or-approving

Is “that's an interesting idea” necessarily an encouraging or approving expression in English? Can it be a negative or disapproving comment?

In BrE it's often a cliched euphemism for "That's a totally stupid idea, but I'm too polite to spell it out for you." But this is a matter of culture and social mores, not English language as such. – FumbleFingers 23 hours ago

@FumbleFingers Yep, it can be the same in AmE. Depends a lot on tone of voice and context, too. "We should put blue mousetraps on the moon!" "Oh... That's an interesting idea..." vs "We should do [x] to improve company revenue." "Huh. That's an interesting idea!" Tone and body language say a lot. If it's written, you'd have to figure it out from context. – WendiKidd♦ 23 hours ago

(Also denny, please include your entire question in the question body. Descriptive titles are good, but when you're writing the question body pretend the title isn't there and add all relevant information accordingly. ) – WendiKidd♦ 23 hours ago

FWIW, according to NGrams, about 1 in every 300 instances of a good idea are followed by but.... – FumbleFingers 23 hours ago

...with an interesting idea it's 1 in 50. So interesting ideas are six times more likely to attract criticism thangood ones. – FumbleFingers 23 hours ago

一个合理的答案是：That's an interesting idea. 这句话并不总是表示嘲讽或否定，而是与说话人的语气和说话的环境密切相关。即使在最后一个人的意见里，我们也不应该忽视：在an interesting idea出现的50次里，有49次并不是followed by but。

 

[ccc]

换成汉语就是“有点意思”。

 

[一心无住]

 

[mooncake]

That's an interesting idea
通常意思就是：你这个主意，嗯，老婆，那个什么，昨天的菜没放冰箱啊，我咋闻到一股馊味？
也有暗指与众不同，非常异类的想法，比如说前段时间 @向问天 说要short AAPL，大家就可以说他的idea嗯那个什么very interesting.
极少数情形表示可以值得探讨。

 

[ccc]

That's an interesting idea
通常意思就是：你这个主意，嗯，老婆，那个什么，昨天的菜没放冰箱啊，我咋闻到一股馊味？
也有暗指与众不同，非常异类的想法，比如说前段时间 @向问天 说要short AAPL，大家就可以说他的idea嗯那个什么very interesting.
极少数情形表示可以值得探讨。

你这个想法有意思。

 

[mooncake]

你这个想法有意思。

活学活用。

 

[ccc]

That's an interesting idea.

 

[冷笑9声]

That's an interesting idea.

俺的体会也是觉得观点异类，又不好开骂SB时说，That's an interesting idea.

 

[ccc]

俺的体会也是觉得观点异类，又不好开骂SB时说，That's an interesting idea.

正所谓culture shock。