There’s more to this phrase thank just “wonderful”. It’s ALWAYS followed by “but” and is used when you agree that something is a good idea, but you see an obstacle or you just disapprove on the grounds that follow the “but”:
— If you really want your new business to get off the ground, I think we need to film a commercial, launch a website and establish a delivery service. I’d be happy to head all of these projects for you and manage the budget.
— That’s all well and good, but you seem to be overlooking the fact that I just started this business and I don’t have the money for all those things yet.
Here, the speaker isn’t using WELL AND GOOD to literally praise the idea — on the contrary, he’s sarcastically “Yeah, yeah, that all SOUNDS great, but what am I, a millionaire?!”
all well and good
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Обсуждение (8)
There must be some idiomatic way to express this in Russian. Maybe it’s “wonderful”, but I’m just making sure you understand what WELL AND GOOD really means and how we use it.
Thank you very much, Uly!
In Russian it is "Это всё, конечно, хорошо, но..."
Beautiful! Thank you for the Russian version :)
So the correct entry should be:
That’s all well and good, but…
But note that ALL doesn’t refer to several things, it refers to the “well and good”. Like when we say “He came up to me ALL ANGRY and told me I’m fired.” I think you say something similar in Russian with весь or такой.
The "Он просто рвал и метал" Russian expression is quite good here. "Когда он пришёл ко мне, он просто рвал и метал и сказал мне, что я уволен". Word-by-word translation is not good here, I think.
That was only an example of using ALL to describe someone’s attitude or physical state: “Her boyfriend left and now she’s all bitter and doesn’t want to talk to anyone.” I don’t need a Russian translation; it’s just to illustrate my point.