See "I came here to win".
The implication is that attempting to win in a competition is the unusual case. Do people bring their B games? No one seems to say so, let alone their C, D, or F games. It is the thing the athlete says when confronted by the microphone with no actual idea to impart.
Of late, this seems to be particularly egregious on cooking competitions a la "Chopped" on the Food Network.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Beyond X
People in the past few years have taken to using "beyond" as a superlative. "That girl is beyond beautiful" to mean "extremely beautiful." Beyond does not mean more-than. It means on the other side of, or farther than.
Recently, on NPR of all places, a commentator described someone's politics as "beyond San Francisco" to mean "extremely liberal" (or, at least, more liberal than San Francisco). I'm sorry, beyond San Francisco is the pacific ocean, not more San Francisco-ish-ness.
"Beyond" is a place in space, not an increase in intensity. Since we have plenty of terms to describe the latter, let's not corrupt "beyond" into one of them. It amazes me how frequently people want to remove the unique usefulness of a word.
Recently, on NPR of all places, a commentator described someone's politics as "beyond San Francisco" to mean "extremely liberal" (or, at least, more liberal than San Francisco). I'm sorry, beyond San Francisco is the pacific ocean, not more San Francisco-ish-ness.
"Beyond" is a place in space, not an increase in intensity. Since we have plenty of terms to describe the latter, let's not corrupt "beyond" into one of them. It amazes me how frequently people want to remove the unique usefulness of a word.
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