OT Rant - Update...& the cat flap

On 2006-01-31, Shel-hed penned:
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:16:36 -0700, "Monique Y. Mudama"
wrote:

On 2006-01-31, Helen Miles penned:

Turns out that she had made a king sized mistake! An
administrative error by accident had meant that I was
automatically refused a place at teacher training college. She is
sorting it out tomorrow and I'm going to be invited to interview
in the next couple of weeks.

Somewhat of a relief, I can tell you!


Is this one of those weird British usages of words, like how "quite"
means "a little bit" and not "very"?

If you mean "somewhat", then it's often used in an understated or
facetious way. A different example might be-

That's what I meant. I suspect the usage would have been more obvious
if I'd been able to see Helen's face when she typed it. For some
reason, the examples you gave below seem clear to me, but I wasn't
sure about Helen's post =)

"Isn't jumping off that cliff without a parachute a little
dangerous?" "Somewhat. :-)"

Or- "I'm somewhat pregnant."

It is also used to imply fullness, completeness, thoroughness, etc.
"Cleaning Sony's rootkit from a P.C. can be somewhat of a problem
for computer newbies."


--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca