no better than

0 I think your sentence is more an 'addition' than an 'interpretation'.02br
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00The original: we shouldn't expect some politicians to be any better than they are (?)02br
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00It's what we call a "loaded sentence"! 0-

0 You mean the original, not mine, doesn't really make sense?0-

0I should have said 00'a few might be even worse than we expect them to be as politicians'00 instead, by the way.0-

0Or does it mean something like 'some politicians never go beyond our expectations'? 0-

0 01i00>Some politicians are no better than they ought to be.02i02br
00I find this original only in a Japanese blog, and it01b00 is02b00 confusing. 02br
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00Yours makes sense. 0230hrefhttp://blog.kansai.com/shattered_sky+day+20070726

0OK. Thanks, MH! 0-

Just out of interest, let me pick up this old thread.

PhilipIt's what we call a "loaded sentence"!

What does 'a loaded sentence' really mean here? Does the sentence 'some politicians are no better than they ought to be' not make any sense at all? If not, then why not?

It's a colloquial expression.

I think it orginally meant that a young woman was not overly particular in bestowing her sexual favors. That is to say, it was a genteel way of saying "She sleeps around." However, with a woman's sexual promiscuity no longer regarded with the same degree of horror as it once was, it's now migrated to a more meaning of "They should behave better than they do

GG, it's politicians, not women...

I'm telling you the origin of the phrase. As I said, it has morphed into meaning a more general "they should behave better than they do."