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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: Decent food, but I can’t say the same about the service. My comments: To paraphrase: The food at the restaurant is OK (decent), but the service is not. The speaker describes one thing (food) with an adjective (decent), but he cannot describe another thing (service) with the same word, that’s all. That’s it. “Can’t say the same” is just a round about way of saying one thing is not at all as good as the other (mentioned earlier). The speaker finds saying directly that the service is poor to be too straightforward and blunt. Therefore he uses “can’t say the same” to sound less blunt and more polite. The great Willie Nelson sings in “Still water runs deepest”: Still water runs the deepest Like a love complete and through So peaceful and dependable I can’t say the same about you Our love is cold and selfish It never could be true One time I loved you truly I can’t say the same about you Here, the singer compares his lover to still water, which “runs deepest” and is like “a love complete and dependable” but he can’t say the same about his lover. In other words, she’s not like that. Not at all. He can say that one time he loved her truly but he can’t say the same about her. That means he doesn’t think she loved him at all. | 
