task failed successfully
- idiom
- Slang
:
tarea fallida con éxito
- The software update crashed, but my files were restored — task failed successfully.
Examples
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Her attempt to fix the bug didn't work, but the glitch disappeared anyway: task failed successfully.
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When the server crashed, we joked that it was just another task failed successfully moment.
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When he saw the error message saying task failed successfully, he couldn't help but laugh.
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Wow, that was a real task failed successfully moment!
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After the system crashed during the update, we were shocked when everything was still intact; it was a classic case of task failed successfully.
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When she received an error but saw that the report still generated perfectly, she laughed and said, 'task failed successfully!'
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He shrugged and remarked that the project was a task failed successfully kind of success after everything seemed to go wrong but still met the deadline.
Synonyms
205
4.6
A situation where what happens is the opposite of what you expect
Surface Forms
Morphology
task + fail + successfully
The phrase combines transparent lexical meanings ('task' + 'failed' + 'successfully') to create an obvious contradiction, so a learner who knows the words can often infer an ironic or unexpected positive outcome from a failure. However, this interpretation depends on pragmatic/ironic inference and non-literal use rather than straightforward compositional semantics, so the meaning is partially predictable but not fully derivable from the parts.
Etymology
Task failed successfully comes from funny computer error messages that mixed the words task, failed, and successfully in one line. People began using this strange image as a joke for a situation that 'failed' but somehow turned out well, so now it means a failure that oddly gives a good result.