So-so means neither good nor bad — acceptable, but nothing to get excited about. It is your answer when something was fine and that is all: the film was so-so, business has been so-so this month, "How are you?" "So-so." The feeling behind it is mild disappointment held politely in check. Nobody says so-so about something they loved. This makes it useful and a little dangerous: if a friend cooks for you and you say the food was so-so, you have quietly told them it was not good. It works two ways in a sentence. After a linking verb it describes a thing — *The hotel was so-so* — and it can also describe how something was done: *He plays the guitar so-so*, though that use is less common and sounds informal. So-so is spoken, casual English. In writing, or at work, people choose *average*, *mediocre*, or *not bad* instead. It is normally used alone or right after the verb, not in front of a noun — you would say "the meal was so-so", not "a so-so meal", although writers do sometimes break that.