"It is crispy and ridiculous!"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:30 PM +0000 4/7/11, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>Foodies (and some others) are also fond of laudatory "sinful" (or
>"sinfully delicious").
>
>--Charlie

Of course that could just be acknowledging the sin (or secular
equivalent thereof, as in "decadent chocolate cake") and declaring or
presupposing that it's worth it.

On "ridiculous" for athletic exploits, there's also "stupid good",
but maybe that's a more general encomium spread throughout pop
culture (and we know adverbs are more inclined to bleach than
adjectives; cf. "terrible" vs. "terribly").  Cf. also positive "bad"
and the aforementioned "sick".

LH


>
>________________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>Jonathan Lighter [wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM]
>Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 11:03 AM
>
>
>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
>
>
>On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  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:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>  -----------------------
>>>  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
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  --
>>   "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>>  truth."
>>
>
>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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>
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