Watched the democratic convention. How many times did you hear someone say ‘existential’? Did they mean:
Meaningful? Emotional? Positive? Real? Empirical? Spiritual? achievement?
Let’s face it. ‘Existential’ is a thesaurus word – just like ‘gay’ was.
Ancient Mariner
I heard existential at least three times, always with threat. Is an existential threat a threat to our existence? Wouldn’t it be more powerful to say “a threat to our very existence?” if that is what was meant. Otherwise, existential threat sounds like a philosophical idea.
Mariner can sure get a lot of traction out of one word!
Yes, absolutely! “a threat to our very existence” would be more powerful.
At least we didn’t hear “self fulfilling prophecy” . What the hell does that mean?