# Oxymoronic? "His career's meteoric rise" was phenomenal. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 9, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293 "2004-02-09T17:04:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/1 "2004-02-09T17:04:23Z")
Journalists frequently use the phrase “meteoric rise” to denote the breathtaking, upward arc of someone’s career. Strange, but I’ve yet to see a meteor ascend from Earth to the heavens. If anything, shouldn’t the phrase refer to a sudden and catastrophic collapse/fall, such as the meteoric plunge of Pee Wee Herman’s career? How did this phrase get started and what board of inquiry should I contact to see it banished? ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/2 "2004-02-09T17:21:59Z")
According to the third definition at [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=meteoric), the word “meteoric” doesn’t refer to falling in this context. It certainly does bring an incongruous image to mind when it is (invariably) paired with “rise”, though. > [@](#): > > Similar to a meteor in speed, brilliance, or brevity: _a meteoric rise to fame._ ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/3 "2004-02-09T17:34:12Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > How did this phrase get started and what board of inquiry should I contact to see it banished? Human language is – and always has been – illogical. Those that try and fight this fact lose every single time. ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/4 "2004-02-09T19:47:57Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Human language is – and always has been – illogical. If it weren’t for my horse, I never would have spent that year in college. ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/5 "2004-02-09T20:39:11Z")
I think that “meteoric rise” is just another instance of scientific terms and ideas getting abused when moved to common language. Some of the ones that drive me crazy: [ul] [li]“Our new technology is a quantum leap over our competitors’!” Ummm. Great, but you do know that a quantum is the **smallest** possible change. Talk about damning yourself with faint praise![/li][li]“Scientists have shown that the flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause hurricanes half the words away.” Actually, the chaos theory math is really an attempt to explain why large dynamic systems **aren’t** thrown into violent reaction by every small event.[/li][li]“Einstein showed that everything is relative.” No, that’s **Galileo** ’s view of relativity. Einstein’s insight is better summarized as “everything is relative except the speed of light” (or perhaps “everything is kind of relative as long as it’s moving pretty slow and you aren’t measuring very precisely” ) because light behaves in ways that would have given poor Galileo conniptions.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/6 "2004-02-10T01:35:10Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > If anything, shouldn’t the phrase refer to a sudden and catastrophic collapse/fall, such as the meteoric plunge of Pee Wee Herman’s career? No, because the term refers to the incredible speed of meteors, not that fact that they are pulled into Earth’s (or whatever else’s) gravity well. > [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > How did this phrase get started. . ? Probably because they travel so dog-gone fast. > [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > . . . and what board of inquiry should I contact to see it banished? Contact or join the editorial board of one of the major dictionaries. They’re ultimaltely the ones who are responsible for listing the various definitions. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/7 "2004-02-10T01:46:40Z")
Meteors are bright flashes that streak across the night sky, high and short-lived, which is metaphorically how we experience many entertainers’ careers. In fact, more often with entertainers than with meteors, we sometimes witness the impact with ground-level. ---
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/8 "2004-02-10T04:33:12Z")
[http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/meteoric.html](http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/meteoric.html) ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/9 "2004-02-10T10:57:01Z")
> [@ChordedZither](#): > > [ul] > [li]“Our new technology is a quantum leap over our competitors’!” Ummm. Great, but you do know that a quantum is the **smallest** possible change. Talk about damning yourself with faint praise![/li][/ul] Well, I’ll explain this one then. A Quantum Leap is an instantanous change with no intervening steps. Leaps immediately from one state to another. That’s what the metaphor is supposed to imply, not the size of the jump… ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/10 "2004-02-10T11:31:53Z")
I’d be willing to let this one go. No metaphor is perfect. The analogy hits “brighter, burning up, above you” but just missed “rise/fall.” It’s can be annoying but I’m used to it. More of a problem is that it’s pretty dead now - everyone uses it all the time. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/11 "2004-02-10T15:22:42Z")
We tend to think of a meteor as a hunk of rock, but it’s not. The original definition is “a bright trail or streak that appears in the sky”, although it is true that sometimes the term is applied to the rock itself. So, it’s a bright, brief flash of light high above you–in that sense, the metaphor is reasonable. “Meteor” has the same roots as “meteorological,” pertaining to the atmosphere. I agree with **dylan\_73** ’s answer to **ChordedZither** about “quantum leap.” I don’t see anything wrong with its common use. I don’t understand **ChordedZither** ’s other objections either. Einstein extended and included Galilean relativity, and **ChordedZither** ’s characterization of chaos theory doesn’t make any sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![ChordedZither](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9c0ed/32.png) [@ChordedZither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChordedZither)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/12 "2004-02-10T17:06:06Z")
> [@dylan\_73](#): > > A Quantum Leap is an instantanous change with no intervening steps. Leaps immediately from one state to another. That’s what the metaphor is supposed to imply, not the size of the jump… Oh, I agree that’s what the metaphor is _supposed_ to imply. But google for the phrase, toss out all the references to the TV series of that name and the obvious puns for projects that actually involve quantum mechanics. I think you’ll see that most of the popular uses of the phrase (mis)use it to imply a “large jump”. Many projects that were years in the making claim to be “quantum leaps” over the state of the art. An example is [this article](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2000/04/07/ie5mac) that notes that the release of a software package was long-delayed and that most of the new features were already familiar, but apparently it’s a quantum leap because “This release is a major overhaul”. > [@RM Mentock](#): > > Einstein extended and included Galilean relativity, and **ChordedZither** ’s characterization of chaos theory doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s the attribution of Galilean relativity to Einstein as if “everything is relative” is some new 20th century concept that bugs me. And the dynamic instability of the “butterfly effect” isn’t a product of chaos theory - you get that instability from classical mathematics applied to complex dynamic systems. Chaos theory contributes idea like “strange attractors” that explain why the world remains more or less stable despite those low-level perturbations. What those two examples have in common is that, in both cases, the “popular” summary of a scientific theory is actually summarizing the older ideas that the newer theory overthrew. I see this kind of confusion-to-the-point-of-reversal about scientific ideas as very common. So why should we be surprised at “meteoric rise”? Yes, “meteoric” may mean “rapid” and “brilliant”. But note that one only talks about meteoric rises and meteoric falls - never about meteoric horizontal travel. We don’t see car commercials using that adjective, for example. So it’s not just that people want an adjective that means both rapid and brilliant - they apparently want an implication of verticality as well. I wonder if most people usign the term “meteoric” understand the difference between a meteor and a meteorite. Of course, “meteoritic” just doesn’t sound as good as “meteoric”. But I think the idiomatic usage of “meteoric” generally includes a sense of risk, of being on the verge of a crash. Given that, a “meteoric rise” seems even less apropos. But, again, I just don’t expect precision once scientific phrases enter the popular parlance. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/13 "2004-02-11T11:37:35Z")
> [@ChordedZither](#): > > I think you’ll see that most of the popular uses of the phrase (mis)use it to imply a “large jump”. As opposed to a continuous incremental change. Hence, the metaphor. > [@](#): > > It’s the attribution of Galilean relativity to Einstein as if “everything is relative” is some new 20th century concept that bugs me. Galilean relativity did not claim that everything is relative–it had a limited application to only inertial systems. Einstein’s general relativity extended it to all reference frames, even non-inertial ones. So, the attribution is apt. > [@](#): > > And the dynamic instability of the “butterfly effect” isn’t a product of chaos theory - you get that instability from classical mathematics applied to complex dynamic systems. Sensitive dependence upon initial conditions (the butterfly effect) was delineated by [Lorenz](http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci759332,00.html) in 1963, and then in 1972. I assume you’re talking about Poincare’s work and similar stuff, but I don’t understand your contention that the butterfly effect isn’t a part of chaos theory. > [@](#): > > I see this kind of confusion-to-the-point-of-reversal about scientific ideas as very common. No argument there. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxymoronic-his-careers-meteoric-rise-was-phenomenal/228293/14 "2004-02-11T15:54:25Z")
Meteor comes from the Greek word, _meteoros_ which means “lifted up,” “raised,” "suspended in the air. Anything which rises into the air is “meteoric.” anything suspended in the air is technically a “meteor.” That’s why weather guys are called meteoroligists. They study atmospheric meteors such as clouds, ice, dust, etc. “Meteoric rise” is perfectly acceptable. There is nothing inherent in “meteoric” that suggests a trajectory _down._