'a good few' = 'a good many'?

[Tamara]

Hi

When I read in Agatha Cristie’s books something like

The place was somewhat overloaded with gimcrack ornaments, (by the way, why is the ',' here? Hmm…) and a good many family portraits of surpassing ugliness adorned the walls.

or .. two little girls tied up with a good many unnecessary bows of ribbon. -

I understand a good many without questions and quite naturally.

But when I read a good few months work... – where a good few is also used for ‘many’ months…
and my dictionary also assumes using ‘a good few for ‘quite a lot’ or even for ‘a good half’...
(Ex.: ‘a good few of the inhabitants’ = ‘fully a half of inhabitants’)

My question is: does a good few bring/have a bit ironical meaning, like in, for example, what we sometimes say in response to ‘How are you?’ -
‘Not too bad, thank you.’
?
_________________
It’s impossible to learn swimming without entering the water…

[Yankee]

Hi Tamara

I can only give you Americanized input about the usage:

I would understand "a good few" to mean "more than a couple (2) but somewhat less than a lot". But I can't tell you exactly what "a lot" means... That's too philosophical for me. Also, "a good few" sounds a bit unusual to me, so it may be more a British thing.

Possibly "a good few" would be used to mean "very many" in situations where you want to minimize something (e.g., make the size of something that's negative seem smaller than it actually is) but you also don't want to actually lie about it.

If someone said "It will be a good six weeks until they can make a decision", I'd understand that to mean "at least 6 weeks" / "fully 6 weeks".

If someone said "It will be a good few weeks until they make a decision"... hmmmmm ... I don't know... I have no idea how long that might be... but the word "few" would certainly tend to plant the idea of "a couple" in my head.

Maybe Alan will give his input about "a good few".

Amy
_________________
Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Tamara]

Hi Amy

Thank you for your input.

I can only add that my daughter when asked 'how many months would you suppose in a good few months?' answers briefly 'four'. But my son immediately corrected her saying that 'four' is just a few months whereas a good few months in his understanding would be a period between 7 and 12 months (!).

[Alan]

hi Tamara,

There are occasions when someone (such as your good self) posts a question/comment on our illustrious site and that makes me think mmm - er yes - well yes -interesting - now let me see. I paraphrase some of the thought processes that take place in my mind before I pounce on the keyboard and this happens to be such an occasion concerning good in this context. It may well be, as Amy suggests, a British thing or as Master Blair says (as overheard) 'thingy' and at the back of my mind I keep hearing the word 'goodly' which is an archaic form suggesting of considerable size and it could be a corruption of that. And thumbing through my dog-eared quotations by Bartlett I came across a few examples of goodly in that sense and they appear a lot in the English translation of the Bible - 17th century. Anyhow back to the real world I would say that using good in a good few/many tends to emphasise the few and the many suggesting that it's more than you expect. It comes up also in these expressions: It's a good long way (very long) It's a good deal better (much better).

Hope these ramblings help a little.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Word Story: Jokes

[Tamara]

Hi Alan

Thank you. I believe and hope I still have a potential to understand all those shades of the alive English.

Actually, the thing that confused me is/was: using 'good' in real "negative" situations (in some sense). When, for example,