quelque peu

[alan gould]

i have the sentence: 

Je souhaite m'attarder quelque peu sur ce point

so here, quelque peu refers to "a few seconds or minutes".  are there other times when "quelque peu" is used w/o specifying something when it's obvious what is being referred to? 

to me, it's the equivalent of "see u in a few" or "have a good one [day]" which were expressions that were supposed to b cute and caught on (i refused to use them) but largely died out after several years.    

  

[Chantal Savignat]

"quelque peu" means "un peu". Sometimes "quelque peu" means "beaucoup".

But it's not a new or a fun or a cute expression. "quelque peu" exists for centuries. It's used but it's "quelque peu" formal.

it's typically this kind of sentence we hear at high school when there is a teacher who wear a tie and glasses, who listen what he says himself and about who my children say "it's an intellectual....".

It's used but it's not a expression we heard every corner of streets.

[alan gould]

great explanation.  so i'm going to disregard it.  i would of course say "je souhaite m'attarder un moment/pour un instant/un peu."     

 

[George Hunt]

I think "quelque petit peu" could also work nicely (an alliteration is it when you repeat the p's like that?) 

[Chantal Savignat]

Yes, it's an alliteration.

We don"t say "quelque petit peu". We say "un tout petit peu".

And we can play with that : "il est quelque peu petit" is possible.