May Contain Peanuts

Best Hyperbole Ever!

There is a trend I have been noticing quite a bit lately. I'm not sure if this is actually just common place and I haven't been noticing it before or if this really is an epidemic of our culture. What these inquisitive ears have been hearing far too often of late is the emphatic use of hyperbole (pronounced hi-per-bo-lee, not hyper-bowl). You know, that term you learned in 4th grade that gave you a grammatical name to associate with all the exaggerations you heard in the schoolyard (well, if you thought about that kind of stuff, it did).

What inspired me to expose this aggravation was a recent trip to the community pool. As I was leaving, I overheard a teenager say, "I hate him with the passion of a thousand suns". First, this struck me as just plain ridiculous, that a teenager would say something with that type of syntax, but I assumed he had just heard it somewhere and was repeating it for intentional comic effect. But then it got me to thinking just how often this overly exaggerated type of verbiage is used to convey rather ordinary thoughts and feelings.

I'm sure this teenager doesn't hate the person that much. I'm also sure that The Dark Knight is not the best movie ever created and that Megan Fox is not the hottest woman in the universe. Yes, I know that hyperbole is not meant to be taken literally, but that is not my point. My point is that these type of things are heard every day, mostly from those trying to sell us something. We are bombarded with it every time we turn on the tv, listen to the radio or read a periodical. Hyperbole sells. It claims to have the extreme of something, the ultimate. Words like "Best", "Fastest", and "Hottest" are combined with "ever", "of all time", or "in the world" to appeal to our inner power struggles. We all want the newest or best product, something that puts us ahead of our neighbors, something that makes us important, special or just better. Hyperbole appeals to this desire head on.

One problem with this aggrandizement comes when we must actually face reality about the things we are being sold, and in turn the reality of the things we describe that may have been overstated. My new computer is only 'the fastest computer on the market' until the next one comes out the following week. When I was thirsty, the most thirst-quenching sports drink in all likelyhood could have been easily replaced by good old water. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, scraping the glitter off of all the shiny things around us, but I would like to call for a more realistic approach to our everyday descriptions. Use terms and adjectives that are truthful and realistic in scope. Perhaps this is too honest an approach for a capitalistic people, constantly striving for one-up-manship. I would like to let slide all the advertisers out there who use hyperbole to attract customers, as it would be a lot harder to sell something that is just average, or good enough. My real problem with all of this is that with enough saturation of exaggerated banter, we tend to adopt these methods in our own right and in effect put a veil of superiority over our everyday lives.

Yes, hyperbole is great for comedic effect, as demonstrated by the pool guys. It is also great for saleability and marketing. What I am bothered about is the sheer amount of hyperbole apparent in our daily lives. I feel like in our everyday conversations, things cannot be described in a to the point, honest fashion. Instead, they are "the sweetest thing I have ever seen, ever" or "the dumbest thing in the history of man". Luckily, good writing rarely traipses over these boundaries, but in reality, the majority of our conversations are verbal and are thus subject to the vernacular of the time.

Hyperbole is not a bad thing. In the right context, it achieves it's purpose. I just wish more people would think twice before resorting to this extreme. A well thought, honest description is far more valuable than empty rhetoric, perhaps even the best type of description man has ever created.