"It is crispy and ridiculous!"

[Jonathan Lighter]

But maybe impressive athletic feats really are ridiculous.

I mean in the scheme of things. You know, like big stock market movements.
Do Zeus and Hera care?

JL

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "It is crispy and ridiculous!"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 10:36 AM -0400 4/7/11, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >Rachael Ray describing the focaccia she's taking out of the oven.
> >
> >And I thought it was weird to hear Randy Jackson on the last season
> >of American Idol, complimenting a contestant's performance by saying
> >it was ridiculous!
>
> The latter sounds like the usage that's become common (involving
> adjectives I'd have thought of as negative in connotation, e.g.
> "sick") on ESPN's SportsCenter to commend particularly impressive
> athletic feats.
>
> LH
>
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