A pro and a con at the same time

Is there a word for anything that is a con and a pro at the same time. I mean it is both good and bad, has both a minus and a plus, is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

6 Answers
6

A good term for that is a mixed blessing. You would use it like

Being the only person in town who could read or write was a mixed blessing; the villagers were impressed and respectful, but they also came to me with a non-stop flow of letters to read, contracts to sign, etc.

A common expression is a double-edged sword:

something that has or can have both favorable and unfavorable consequences

Here is an example of it in use, showing the subject's positive and negative effects, from an article titled, Technology is a double-edged sword:

...innovation is a double-edged sword. Digital technology is indeed creative, in the sense that it enables us to do new things that were hitherto impossible....But technology is also destructive in the sense that it destroys or undermines things that are valuable: bookshops and print newspapers...

Alternate versions of the same concept are "two-edged sword" and "it cuts both ways".

So we could reword the above example as either:

... innovation is a two-edged sword.

or:

... innovation cuts both ways.

Something that has both good and bad qualities can be said to be a blessing and a curse:

Something that is both a benefit and a burden or that may seem initially beneficial but also brings unforeseen negative consequences.

Here's an example sentence:

The Internet is both a blessing and a curse—a blessing in that you have easy access to all the information in the world without having to leave your house, but a curse in that it gives evil people like terrorists and pedophiles an easy tool that they can use to commit their crimes.

Another phrase for something that has both positive and negative aspects is a mixed bag.

Here is an example of how it's used in a sentence.

The service at the restaurant was a mixed bag. The staff were very friendly, however, the service was incredibly slow and we had to wait nearly half an hour until our food was served.

Maybe the term trade-off?

Although it is sometimes used to describe a compromise which may be neither the "pro" nor the "con" but somewhere in-between, it is also often used to describe something which has both pros and cons.

For example a piece of software that lacks some features of one competitor (so has cons) but has advantages over another (pros) may be described as "a good trade-off".

I suspect this is quite a niche colloquialism (I'm English) but we use the term swings and roundabouts to describe something that can be positive or negative, ie where there are two options, both having positive and negatives but overall adding up to making no real difference.

Related question on ELU: Why does 'swings and roundabouts' mean 'gains and losses that offset each other'?

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