Word: one-upmanship
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Harvard students love to out-brag one another about their hectic schedules. But FM found someone whose schedule may just trump a round of dining hall one-upmanship. Damian Woetzel, a master’s degree in public administration candidate at the Kennedy School of Government, takes classes at Harvard in addition to being a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and running a summer arts festival in Colorado. FM caught up with the dreamy dancer in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum before he had to leave to meet New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg...
...effect of frequent exaggerations is two-fold: Not only does it lead to one-upmanship (my description of last night’s party is more ridiculous than yours), but also causes us to second-guess the stories of others. We’ve become accustomed to lies, thus used to expressing doubt, and subsequently we have a need to legitimize our own tales and earn credibility for our own anecdotes – enter the ubiquitousness of “literally.” We hope it grounds exaggerations, convinces peers of the truth, and grants us validity among...
...from the locals by a language barrier. Their Mexican nanny is frustrated in her attempts to explain herself to the U.S. border patrol after she illegally leaves the country with Susan’s kids. The Moroccan boys who fired on the bus during a deadly game of sibling one-upmanship can’t justify their actions to their parents or the provincial police who hunt them. Iñárritu also introduces us to Chieko, the deaf-mute Japanese teenager whose absurdly tangential connection to the events in Morocco inexplicably serves as the movie?...
...that-guy’s unspeakable evils. So someone steps up to lead the charge and becomes, well, that guy. Pretty soon, you have a good chunk of that guys, or that gals, all in constant search of the trump. They, too, must exercise some sort of meaningless verbal one-upmanship, so that they too will get noticed. Time for yet another vote of “no confidence”—Harvard’s new favorite game that never grows...
...Latin, Hebrew, Old Church Slavonic, Arabic, and Lithuanian. (Later, in the midst of serving Armenian cherry-flavored brandy out of a Diet Pepsi bottle, Russell declined to tabulate how many languages he knows, but it seems they would number about 20.)Seminars in the humanities are pervaded by a one-upmanship in which undergrads clamor to hear themselves speak—usually to little educative avail. But while other Faculty are inexplicably reticent to guide discussions, Russell rightly figures that students can best learn by hearing him talk. And talk he does. Beyond the assigned Psalms, for instance, Russell embarked...