stupid = 'very pleasing; marvelous'

[Ben Zimmer]

On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> This has been around for some years, but perhaps never more blatantly as in
> this ad:
>
> "It's an unlikely pairing: The world's smartest looking smartwatch and the
> world's stupidest mobile app. And yet they have indeed teamed up, because
> mobile app Yo has just announced that 'Motorola is going to use the Yo
> platform to release their long awaited Moto 360 smart watch.' And yes, this
> promotion is just as awesomely stupid as you think it is."
>
> For some of, of course, the sense is equivocal.
>
> But only for some.

In this case, I think "stupid" is intended to be read the
old-fashioned way, though tinged with irony. The "Yo" app is widely
regarded as dumb -- all it's capable of doing is sending out the
message "Yo." While some might find this "awesomely stupid," its
baseline stupidity is still unquestioned.

--bgz

-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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