Microcosm
09-Jan-06
Okay it’s been awhile but Q102 has caused me to get out of my posting funk again. You may recall a few weeks ago when the madness on the morning show caused me to post.
Today, they had a series of quotes about the Bengals’ loss to Pittsburgh yesterday. One of them was from backup QB Jon Kitna, who was thrust into playing when starter Carson Palmer got injured on the Bengals’ 2nd play of the game. He said something to the effect of “football is a microcosm of life”, talking about how in life you never know what’s going to happen either and how you just have to be prepared for everything, blah blah blah.
So then Jenn, one of the morning hosts, makes some snide remark about how she is just glad that a football player used such a big word (microcosm). Then she asks Jeff if he used it correctly, and he says that he doesn’t know because he doesn’t know what the word means either!
Now, I don’t expect everyone to be a walking dictionary. Just because I know what microcosm means, does not mean that I expect everyone to know what it means. But if you’re going to make fun of someone for using a word, YOU SHOULD AT LEAST KNOW WHAT IT MEANS YOURSELF!!!
To make things worse, Jeff then proceeds to define microcosm completely wrong. Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly how he defined it, which I realize kind of ruins the punch line to the entire blog posting. But trust me, it was completely and totally wrong and in no way even close.
For all of you playing at home:
microcosm (n.) A small, representative system having analogies to a larger system in constitution, configuration, or development: “He sees the auto industry as a microcosm of the U.S. itself” (William J. Hampton).
And yes, Kitna used it correctly.