George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“What kind of pirate was he?” asks someone from the audience.
The author thought about that for a minute.
He’d established that George wasn’t a very good pirate, so what did that make George?
Average? Below-average? Awful? Horrible?
Or did “very good” refer to his nature and character?
If George wasn’t very good, was he evil?
The author hadn’t meant to delve into ontology and the spiritual realm.
“George is just George,” he said. “Can I please continue?”
The audience agreed, but the author had run out of words.