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Daniela Stoycheva Posted 16 years ago
Vocabulary

Not-so-mean

Anybody know what does "not-so-mean streets" means? The whole sentence is "At the Lower East Side/Second Avenue station get off and proceed west on foot through hipster central: 1980s nerd glasses and skinny jeans are the uniform of choice on these not-so-mean streets."
Thank you in advance!
  

Top answer

not so mean = not so evil/dangerous

— Ivanhr

  • not so mean = not so evil/dangerous
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3 Answers
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not so mean = not so evil/dangerous
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It's sort of a figure of speech to call a street mean when there seems to be a lot of evil about. There might even be a song about it. (I know there's one called "Lonely Street" - same sort of device.)

In this case, the street is NOT mean.

Very mean: I live on that oh-so-mean street!

Not very mean: I live on that not-so-mean street!
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