Excellence
Created | Updated Apr 7, 2002
Of course, I know nothing about this personally. I'm a rather average person, who experiences rather average things. Rather, I want to talk about the word "excellent". It is, for a start excellent. It sounds great! Look at it! It's a chuinky word. It sounds like it has more syllabals than it actually has! It has an X! It is a splendid word. If it had a colour, it would be crimson...
The most amazing thing about this word is the way it is used in popular culture. For instance, in the Simpsons, Montgomery Burns (an evil money grabbing git - and I love him for it). has as his catch phrase "Excellent". It is well chosen. That someone so old, grey and thououghly evil can find excellence (usually in a plan coming together) is superb (and, importantly, hilarious).
There is a tradition (especially in British Science Fiction) that a villain, no matter how evil, can still have this capacity for pleasure. In Dr Who, the Cybermen, soulless automatons that they were, still found things (usually the prospect of successful genocide) "excellent". It's difficult to explain, but hearing Mr Burns or the Cybermen assert that an event has the property of being "excellent" fills my heart with unconfined joy. In a way, I suppose it reveals a vein of goodness in everyone (?)
"Excellent" was used ironically by Hugh Grant in "Four Weddings and a Funeral". Interestingly, it was used whenever a plan went badly wrong - and he played a good guy. That "excellence" is now used mainly by bad guys demonstrates the immense power of this word. And long may this tradition continue.
The most amazing thing about this word is the way it is used in popular culture. For instance, in the Simpsons, Montgomery Burns (an evil money grabbing git - and I love him for it). has as his catch phrase "Excellent". It is well chosen. That someone so old, grey and thououghly evil can find excellence (usually in a plan coming together) is superb (and, importantly, hilarious).
There is a tradition (especially in British Science Fiction) that a villain, no matter how evil, can still have this capacity for pleasure. In Dr Who, the Cybermen, soulless automatons that they were, still found things (usually the prospect of successful genocide) "excellent". It's difficult to explain, but hearing Mr Burns or the Cybermen assert that an event has the property of being "excellent" fills my heart with unconfined joy. In a way, I suppose it reveals a vein of goodness in everyone (?)
"Excellent" was used ironically by Hugh Grant in "Four Weddings and a Funeral". Interestingly, it was used whenever a plan went badly wrong - and he played a good guy. That "excellence" is now used mainly by bad guys demonstrates the immense power of this word. And long may this tradition continue.
