The ultimate ungrump
'Tis Christmas and, so I am told, time to put grumpiness aside. So I will attempt to do so.
On of my pet grumps is the the misuse of the word "ultimate" to mean "the very best" and not "the very last". I think the usage came from history, and particularly pop history. You can describe anything retrospective as "the ultimate" history, biography, collection or whatever as a strong compliment. It means that it is so good, there will never be a need of another. Particularly used, I think, in the exhaustive discographies of extinct groups, where every fragment of a forgotten interview has been appended to a huge collection. So if you describe anything you produce as "The Ultimate Collection" or whatever, you are in theory promising never again to produce another of the class. Buy this one, folks, there will be no more. (And the Ultimate Experience is death, after which there will be no more experiences)
Be that as it may, the word has just been taken over as as another essentially meaningless hooray word. In which form it is rapidly being devalued to meaningless, following in the steps of fantastic, terrific, awesome, wonderful and so on. But then, it was ever so. Language, and particularly English, is constantly developing, ans that development includes degradation as well as well as development. And, of course, degradation is a personal view anyway.
It only matters at all when a useful meaning is taken away. There is, unfortunately, no synonym for "gay" in its original sense of bright, cheerful, happy, carefree. It has been entirely taken over my its new sense of homosexual. And in that sense it works well, as a word with less baggage than almost any other with which to refer to and discuss a particular aspect of human sexuality. So I welcome its new sense while mourning the loss of the old.
But "ultimate" meant no more than "the very last" or perhaps "the most extreme" (Ultima Thule). Do I really have that frequent a need to refer to ultimate things that I cannot, on the occasions that I do, use the slightly longer forms? I think not. Ultimate, in its original meaning, would pass my lips but rarely. Much more rarely, in fact, than a grumpy complaint about how it is being misused. So I have decided, is the spirit of the season, to loosen up and stop being grumpy about the misuse of the word ultimate. Truly the ultimate ungrump.
On of my pet grumps is the the misuse of the word "ultimate" to mean "the very best" and not "the very last". I think the usage came from history, and particularly pop history. You can describe anything retrospective as "the ultimate" history, biography, collection or whatever as a strong compliment. It means that it is so good, there will never be a need of another. Particularly used, I think, in the exhaustive discographies of extinct groups, where every fragment of a forgotten interview has been appended to a huge collection. So if you describe anything you produce as "The Ultimate Collection" or whatever, you are in theory promising never again to produce another of the class. Buy this one, folks, there will be no more. (And the Ultimate Experience is death, after which there will be no more experiences)
Be that as it may, the word has just been taken over as as another essentially meaningless hooray word. In which form it is rapidly being devalued to meaningless, following in the steps of fantastic, terrific, awesome, wonderful and so on. But then, it was ever so. Language, and particularly English, is constantly developing, ans that development includes degradation as well as well as development. And, of course, degradation is a personal view anyway.
It only matters at all when a useful meaning is taken away. There is, unfortunately, no synonym for "gay" in its original sense of bright, cheerful, happy, carefree. It has been entirely taken over my its new sense of homosexual. And in that sense it works well, as a word with less baggage than almost any other with which to refer to and discuss a particular aspect of human sexuality. So I welcome its new sense while mourning the loss of the old.
But "ultimate" meant no more than "the very last" or perhaps "the most extreme" (Ultima Thule). Do I really have that frequent a need to refer to ultimate things that I cannot, on the occasions that I do, use the slightly longer forms? I think not. Ultimate, in its original meaning, would pass my lips but rarely. Much more rarely, in fact, than a grumpy complaint about how it is being misused. So I have decided, is the spirit of the season, to loosen up and stop being grumpy about the misuse of the word ultimate. Truly the ultimate ungrump.