2 AM language rant
Sep. 18th, 2005 02:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaOkay, I hereby banish the word "overachiever" from the English language.
It makes no freaking sense at all. An underachiever is achieving less than s/he is capable of. By definition, then, an overachiever is achieving more than s/he is capable of. Um, hello? That's physically impossible, ne?
It's used to denigrate the achievements of those who work hard, usually women or girls but sometimes young men as well. (No one ever uses it to describe a male over 30.) Look, if someone with less talent than you works her heart out and achieves a higher goal than you, with your greater innate ability does, that doesn't mean she's an overachiever; it means either you're an underachiever, or the two of you have different goals. Stop hanging a negative label on other people because they make you look bad by working hard with less raw talent.
It makes no freaking sense at all. An underachiever is achieving less than s/he is capable of. By definition, then, an overachiever is achieving more than s/he is capable of. Um, hello? That's physically impossible, ne?
It's used to denigrate the achievements of those who work hard, usually women or girls but sometimes young men as well. (No one ever uses it to describe a male over 30.) Look, if someone with less talent than you works her heart out and achieves a higher goal than you, with your greater innate ability does, that doesn't mean she's an overachiever; it means either you're an underachiever, or the two of you have different goals. Stop hanging a negative label on other people because they make you look bad by working hard with less raw talent.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-19 02:21 am (UTC)The GPA whores I knew were mostly smug, arrogant, and whiny. I have no way of knowing how "intelligent" most of them were, especially with the way they played the system. During English classes we would have group discussions, and it was quite apparent who was thinking for themselves and who was just repeating things the teacher had said a few days before. One time I came up with a fairly novel thing to talk about(a couple other people told me they thought so, anyway), and when I said it to the group, we got maybe four sentences about it before the GPA whores were back to rehashing thesis/antithesis/synthesis, or whatever tired talking point hadn't been done yet.