English Dialect Survey -- "Impolite as he was..."

In My Humble Opinion
1

Gary Larson once did a Far Side cartoon which showed a group of bears of which one had a huge protruding belly. The caption was,

Impolite as they were, the other bears couldn’t help laughing at Bernie’s “deer gut”.

This has always seemed to stick up on my Chomskyan grammatical radar, because in an utterance of this structure, I expect the second clause to more or less contradict the first, or point to an exception or other aspect of the subject’s nature or behavior which runs counter to the first. To use another example, I would expect something like this:

As impolite as they were, they were nevertheless goodhearted and would be more than willing to help if asked. Or, As much as I enjoy using Google Street View, I do think the Broughton townspeople turning back the Google camera car is an inspiring example of quiet, effective resistance.

I’m American, and Gary Larson is American, so it’s not a general North American dialects contrasted with the others. I suspect it may be an American dialectical variance, like the notorious Midwestern Anymore…. But to help nail this down, I would like respondents to indicate which usage sounds more natural to them, and also their country and region, province, state, or UK / Scots/ ROI county–or for those of you from the RSA, NZ, or any other Anglophone country, whatever your country uses for regions or provinces.

2

Yeah, it does seem a bit odd. If it were “As they were impolite,” I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

3

Hmm. I would only expect that if the phrase were “Impolite though they were,” which is basically just a transformation of “Although they were impolite.” “Impolite as they were” to my ear comes off as an elliptical way of saying “Because they were impolite.”

4

NYC here. I don’t like it but I wouldn’t call it wrong. “Impolite as they were” could mean “as they were impolite”, though normally, as you say, the phrase would be used to set up a contradiction.

5

I agree with the OP: “Impolite as they were…” means, “Despite their being impolite…”

I would have captioned it, “Being impolite, they couldn’t help…”

6

I don’t think it means the same thing as it would if it said “Impolite though they were…” It’s awkward, but I don’t think it’s wrong.

7

I read it as, “impolite though they were,” first. Now that I look again, it makes more sense.

8

To me, it sets off a slight ping, but not really ‘that’s wrong’ so much as ‘that’s unexpected.’ The construction is fairly often used to contradict the clause that comes later, but I can’t think of a reason why it would HAVE to.

9

It’s funny - reading the thread title, I interpret it as “even though they were impolite…”, but if I pretend I’m reading a Far Side, it makes perfect sense. It’s been ages since I read much Far Side, but I feel like that’s just kind of how Larson writes - no idea if it’s a combination of regional and personal style or what, but in context, it seems natural to me.