Comments on: A hell of a …

By: Hector

Hector — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:52:34 +0000

Wow! Thank you so much Graham! That makes things clearer

By: Graham

Graham — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:11:15 +0000

I was thinking about that again, and “X is a hell of a Y” can either mean that X is very bad (i.e the literal meaning), or, when used ironically, the exact opposite (i.e. X is very good), depending on the context and intonation.

I’d say that the ironic meaning is far more common, and that in the context of commenting on a movie this is the most likely.

You could, however, say things like:

That town is a hell of place. There are really some amazing places to see.

That town is a hell of a place. Did you see all the rubbish lying around? And they say that crime is a real problem there.

To say that a movie was really bad, I think I’d probably say something like:

That movie was rubbish / terrible / dreadful / *crap / **shit

* more informal
** very informal / vulgar

By: Hector

Hector — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:26:24 +0000

Oh! Lo he cambiado, de todas formas, tú como dirías que es una película mala?

By: Graham

Graham — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:44:20 +0000

“That was a hell of a movie, I can’t believe how bad (was) the script *was*!”

Suena un poco incongruo – la primera parte quiere decir algo como “that was a great movie”