"It is crispy and ridiculous!"

victor steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Apr 7 15:31:54 UTC 2011


References to something being "ridiculously good" appear to be common
in chef banter on Top Chef (Bravo) and Iron Chef America (The Food
Network).

750K raw ghits, with quite a number for "ridiculously good-looking"
which originated (apparently--or, at least, vectored) in Zoolander.

It's only a small step to trimming that to "ridiculous".

Furthermore, Bravo routinely uses "Outrageous!" in their
self-promotion spots for various reality shows.

VS-)

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But seriously. The psychological trigger for laudatory "ridiculous" may be
> that something is so astonishingly good, that if anybody had described it
> beforehand, the normal, well-ordered mind would have scoffed.
>
> Similarly, laudatory "outrageous" may embody the idea that squares would be
> outraged at the brilliant, defiant audacity of the thing.
>
> Of course, one of the first times I heard it, it was applied to a natural
> landscape. But ignore that part.
>
> JL

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