| I'm guilty of overusing 'great', especially as the first word (actually full sentence) of an email response. In that colloquial context, it means, "total assent/acknowledgement with what you've proposed or reported", rather than a quality evaluation. If aimed at a more concrete bit of work output, 'great' is more likely to be a superlative quality evaluation. For example: Q: "What about this general logo theme for exploration?" [a proposed abstract direction/plan] A: "Great!" [means, I agree that's worth pursuing, let's see where it goes] Q: "I've made this logo treatment." A: "Great!" [Somewhat vague; definitely means I'm glad we've reached this point (regardless of the treatment quality), but might (if directly gesturing at the object) also imply some evaluative approval] Q: "How would you rate logo treatment #2?" A: "Great!" [this finally really means it's evaluated as great on the relevant scale] Even 'excellent', 'fantastic', and other adjectives are often used this same way: casually used to signal sufficient approval, when describing something prospectively/abstractly/directionally, but only being strong signals of judgement when applied to specific, concrete, completed instances. |