‘In the room the women come and go,” reports T. S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, “Talking of Michelangelo.” In my room, the women, and the men with them, also come and go, but using such words as “surreal,” “awesome,” “outlier,” “tipping point,” and “journey.” Of late, they are using fewer of these words. Some among them have turned into clichés, as has happened with “journey,” used to describe one’s education, marriage, cancer; life itself now having become a journey. Others have merely faded away.
One such word, “incredible,” seems more pervasive than ever and doesn’t figure to disappear soon. A recent podcast interview with Oprah Winfrey was about her “incredible life.” A drug commercial reminds us that “the human brain is truly incredible.” Caroline Wozniacki, once the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player, referred to Elena Rybakina, currently the world’s No. 1 women’s tennis player, as “incredibly composed” during a recent match. One of the announcers called the first half of the Bears–Panthers game “incredibly entertaining.” Jesse Watters informs us that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “is an incredible storyteller.” The Medal of Honor Museum, we learn from a documentary on the subject, preserves the memory of those who performed “incredible service to their country.” Along with “amazing” and “fantastic,” “incredible” is one of three chief adjectives in Donald Trump’s vocabulary. And so on into the night.
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