"hoped at to lose"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Relax, Victor. "legendary" is a cliche/empty metaphor, like "sweet" and "wonderful" and "spectacular" and "world-class." (Or "hardwood warrior" or "very Zen comment" or "making a mountain out of a molehill".)

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 10, 2011, at 3:19 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> It sounds odd, but it's a very Zen comment. He is suggesting that people
> were sending bad vibes at the Heat, wishing them to lose. Kind of
> reminds me of Blazing Saddles ("Where's the white women at?") Maybe he
> picked it up from one of his players.
>
> I did raise an eyebrow over the framing--"legendary"? Really? I don't
> think he's legendary--he's quite real and tangible and most of the
> stories about him are either true or can be relatively easily verified.
> Maybe in a decade or two after retirement--like his most famous player.
> Is Bill Belichick a legendary coach? Is Kobe Bryant a legendary player?
> In pro-baseball, the usual superlative is "future hall-of-famer", and
> the same commentary has been making its way into professional football.
> But not so much basketball (I guess, the Basketball Hall of Fame is not
> as legendary). Once long retired and gone from the sport (or just plain
> dead), you might hear "legendary" attached to players/coaches/owners who
> are not hall-of-famers (and, occasionally, to those who are, and not
> necessarily pros).
>
> Maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill, or, perhaps, I am in the
> minority when bracketing the use of "legendary" and excluding current
> stars from being legendary. Certainly a possibility.
>
> This is not to say that other uses of "legendary" do not exist--they do.
> But, at least on my planet, the restrictions on its use in /this/
> context are fairly tight.
>
>    VS-)
>
> On 3/10/2011 12:06 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> Phil ("The Zen Master") Jackson, the legendary Los Angeles Lakers'
>> coach who has won 6 championships with the Chicago Bulls and 5 with
>> the Lakers and is a best-selling author (_Sacred Hoops: Spiritual
>> Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior_ and other work), explaining tonight
>> why the Miami Heat, for whom there were great expectations this year
>> with some expecting them to challenge the all-time record of the
>> Bulls or the current supremacy of the Lakers, have instead struggled
>> this year:
>>
>> =============
>> One of the reasons why the Bulls were very successful and the Lakers
>> also is they engendered good feelings.  From what I've heard, this
>> team (Miami Heat) feels like they've been looked at to lose, or
>> they've been hoped at to lose.  If that's the case, it's a burden to
>> carry.
>> =============
>>
>> LH
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org