Illogical English Language

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Gypsy Dee and I were just YMing about how much easier COBOL is than 
computer languages whose inventors consider them to be logical. I 
said that is because she and I do not have computer science type 
minds: people with computer science type minds are not good at 
English (or their other native lnaguage) and therefore think that 
"English-like" languages like COBOL (I swear that is the technical 
jargon to describe COBOL!) are confusing.

Which reminded me of the discussion on the Main List a while ago 
about Harry indicating that Madame Maxime had not been eavesdropping 
because he hadn't seen her: "She isn't exactly hard to miss." Bente 
pointed out that 'not exactly hard' is 'easy' so Harry was saying 
that Madame Maxime was easy to miss, which is not true and also not a 
good reason to believe that she wasn't hiding there eavesdropping.  

Harry could have said: "Yeah, Madame Maxime might have been there 
without me noticing. She is so easy to miss" and every native speaker 
would hear the sarcasm and know exactly what he meant, even without 
italizing the 'so' or saying 'Harry said sarcastically'. Would that 
work for the non-native speaker? But they MEAN the same!

For that matter, translating that 'not exactly hard' is 'easy' is a 
recognition of sarcasm (understatement as sarcasm): literally 
(logically) 'not exactly hard' is somewhere in that middle ground 
between hard and easy.