Quizzes & Puzzles3 mins ago
Which Word Is A More Strongly Negative Description Of A Person: Shady Or Shifty?
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Shady and Shifty both imply that a person is dishonest and often clever or crafty about it: but do you think that both shady and shifty are equally negative implications or is one more negative than the other? If one is more intensely negative, why?
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No best answer has yet been selected by Evan2020. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I would say that they are very nearly identical. However, personally I would say that there is a slight nuance and that "shifty" has a slightly worse connotation.
If you say "shady" there is some "doubt", although not much, with regards the character. It is highly likely that the person has a dishonest character but you are not 100% sure. With "shifty" you are more sure.
If you say "shady" there is some "doubt", although not much, with regards the character. It is highly likely that the person has a dishonest character but you are not 100% sure. With "shifty" you are more sure.
Evan2020, there won't be a definitive answer to your question, no matter how many times you post it. English language is full of nuances - what's shady to one person could be shifty to another, and yet both would be 'correct'. Getting examples from A,B and C wouldn't clarify things for you as X,Y and Z could think something completely different.
Guys as I said I just love analyzing these words shifty and shady and different examples of them since I love Eminem’s alter ego Slim Shady and to honor it sometimes I playfully pretend to have an alter ego called Slender Shifty so I find it fun analyzing examples of the terms and different people’s opinions on them and don’t mean any harm by it.
I suspect he chose the name because the pattern of the words felt right. Could just as easily been anything. Putting excessive value on the meaning of certain words in terms of heightened significance is sometimes a symptom of lost perspective at best, mental health problems at worse. It's a name... Write to the man get his rationale if you must but otherwise find some other healthier way to exercise your mind.
The meaning of the two words is subjective -some people might think one is more derogatory than the other, some might instinctively choose to use one rather than the other... If you're happy to do a sort of opinion poll and discover that 72%% of ABers think A and 10% think B and the rest don't give a hoot, that's fine by me!
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