Use of the word 'talent' in these games

"She's a talented runner" - I can accept that. She is; she was way behind, she caught up, timed her attack til the last bend, and then found reserves of effort and guts to chase down the runner who came by in the straight. I'm happy to hear the word Talent used in her case. These are useful skills to build onto a natural gift for moving quickly.

The other night, though, a Brit in the studio said "I know I'm a talented high jumper". Well, maybe he is, and I'm certainly not one to offer qualified opinion, but in his case he's saying "I'm very good at boinging along in a stiff-legged arc before springing directly upwards and backwards and then coming straight back down again and landing on the back of my neck. If I ever needed to jump over a very thin, moderately high wall to escape capture, it'd be no problem for me as long as someone had piled up some soft things on the other side, and that's a chance I'm prepared to take".

See, I'm aware that just as in the case of the runner in the first paragraph he's showing skills I never had, but, you know, it seems a bit like being really good at balancing dry roast nuts on your nose, or farting in chords. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but, you know, hmmmmmm.

Posted By: Sugbad The Bad on August 9th 2012 at 20:01:11

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