That is just as well

Reader question:

In this paragraph from the Economist (China: Responding to Disaster, May 12, 2008) – As Beijing prepares to host the summer Olympic Games in less than three months, officials were quick to report that the city's dozens of Olympic venues were built to withstand earthquakes and that none had suffered damage. Authorities also said that no damage was observed at the massive Three Gorges Dam, located on the Yangtze River, several hundred kilometres east of the epicentre. That is just as well. Holding back an enormous reservoir, the dam was built in the face of strong opposition from critics who gave warning, among other things, that it would be vulnerable to earthquake damage that might cause disastrous floods – What does "That is just as well" mean?

My comments:

First, my thoughts as well as yours are with the victims, survivors and rescue workers at this difficult time for folks in Sichuan.

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Now, definitions. "That is just as well" is a piece of nitty-gritty English. Here, it means that's not bad at all or that's fortunate, considering the circumstances.

The root of the phrase is "as well", meaning the same in effect as the alternative. If you do one thing but you may as well do another, it means it makes no difference one way or the other.

"Just as well", with the emphasis on "just", may in fact imply to a preference. For example, if someone invites you and others to a dinner and you tell them that you don't know if you can make it, they might say: "You may just as well tell me you won't come." That means they'd prefer a definite answer because then they could focus on others instead of keeping worrying about you.

And in situations like this, a reason for that "preference" is usually given in context, either explicitly or implicitly. For example in the Economist story, what's been said or and implied essentially is this:

No damage to the Gorges Dam was reported. No damage either to stadiums built for the upcoming Olympics in Beijing. That is fortunate, better than the other way around because, you see, the dams had been facing criticism that they might be vulnerable to earthquakes as well as be a potential eco-liability. No-one wants to hear that they are not safe, certainly not now – in the immediate run-up to the Olympics.

Alright, let me give you a few more examples so that you can get the hang of "just as well" – Paraphrasing (in brackets) is mine.

1. There aren't many manual controls on the Sony T100. That is just as well (That's perhaps better, for). Surely they would be difficult to access with the small size of the buttons and the multitude of options crammed in the menus already. The manual controls that are included are discussed in the following sections.

- Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100 Digital Camera Review, digitalcamerainfo.com.

2. Bureaucracies are difficult to kill and NATO is unlikely to die soon. That is just as well (That's perhaps not so bad, because): Abolishing it would cause real traumas and tremors, and the organization does provide useful if minor functions in military planning and training, as well as a forum.

- NATO is irrelevant: A Bureaucracy Whose Time Has Passed, International Herald Tribune, May 24, 2003.

3. Still, this new rule cannot function properly in the longer run. Eventually, an unexpected economic slowdown will lower revenue and raise entitlement spending by so much that Congress will be politically incapable of raising taxes or cutting spending fast enough to make up for the shortfall. That is just as well (That's fine), because the tax increases and spending cuts, encouraged by the new budget rule, do not make sense when the economy is slowing.

- A Budget Built on Subterfuges, urban.org, November 23, 1999.

4. One either likes or dislikes China, and then proceeds to justify one's likes or dislikes. That is just as well (There's nothing wrong with that, perhaps), for we must take some sort of attitude toward China to justify ourselves as intelligent beings.

- My Country and My People, Lin Yutang.