"not so much" 'no'

[Arnold Zwicky]

an exchange from an episode of the tv series Eureka:

High school student: So we're not getting an A.

Sheriff Jack Carter [the central character in the series, played by Colin Ferguson]: Errr... Not so much.

.....

this is "not so much", a formally muted negative, conveying a straightforward negative answer.

it's conventionalized for the character, who uses it fairly often.

any record of this use elsewhere?  (i don't recall having heard it before, which is what made me notice it, but i just might not have noticed earlier occurrences.)

arnold

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