How do all these people attain “legendary” status?
Ed Bradley was recently described as a “legendary journalist”. :rolleyes:
Bo Schembechler was a “legendary coach.” :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
What are the legends? Did Ed cil him a bar when he was only 3?
Did Bo and his Blue Ox Babe wander the old west chopping down trees?
It’s an abuse of what was a rather strained metaphor-used-as-superlative, for which there seems to be no cure. Personally, I think the achievements of most of the people the term is misapplied to are factual, not legendary.
“He’s a walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.” -K. Kristofferson
It’s nothing new to far overreaching terms as a general word for “cool”. When was the last time you saw someone using “awesome” who was actually awed?
Krusty, at his own farewell show: The word ‘legend’ has many meanings…
I think our language has lost a lot of punch because words like legendary, genius, brilliant, and extraordinary are used so casually and there aren’t any words left to use for rare cases. If Gary Sheffield is a legend, what words are left for Babe Ruth?
I’d like to add that in last season’s Project Runway, Michael Kors seriously referred to his own inimitable way.
I know Runway fans who laugh whenever Heidi uses the word “legendary” to describe Kors.
Not that I’ve seen the show or read blogs about it or anything.
You’re a real hero, 11811.
Aw shucks, anybody would’ve done the same thing 
It’s a euphamism for “old.”
It’s a real tragedy. It literally kills me when our language is abused this way.
It’s overused, but it’s no longer the word to use in reference to Paul Bunyan; that would be mythical. *Legendary *is a smaller word in modern usage than mythical.
I think you may have just been whooshed…
There is nothing mythical about Paul Bunyan (unless we are agreeing to go along with the abuse of language and destroy the word “myth”). I agree that legendary has a “smaller” feel than mythical, but that is because myth does more than legend.
Nothing about Paul Bunyan describes any part of the American (or Canadian) character and no cherished values of the people (aside from the enjoyment of the Tall Tale) is embodied in his story. The reason that mythical has greater power than legendary is that it refers to the act of tapping into the legend to reveal a truth. The “embattled farmers” who faced the redcoats across the "rude bridge that arched the flood, " then chased them back to Boston by harrying them from cover rather than standing up in an open fight have become mythical (both because and in spite of the errors in the tale) because they embrace and carry forward the notion that as “rugged individualists” we will not be constrained by protocol or convention and we will face whatever odds to make our point or have our way.
As much fun as Paul may be, he is a Tall Tale and not a myth.
I disagree. I think Paul Bunyan personifies a great American myth–the triumph of Man (specifically, the White Man) over Nature. Bunyan is symbolic of our deep-seated “need” to cut down forest, change the course of rivers, and dig inot the earth for wealth.
Of course, he was created as a propaganda tool of the timber industry.
Naaah. I was responding as the typical man on the street credited with doing good. Mighta coulda made my response better.
I guess I was whooshed then. Seemed funnier when I thought you had been… 
I’ve always thought of him as an icon.
Folklorist chiming in: actually, legends can (and quite often do) express deep-seated needs, values, and conflicts in a society. That’s really part of their definition. Myth tends to be a bit more cosmic, and set before history began or outside of time. Tomndebb is (are?) using the terms “myth” and “legend” in their actual, technical, senses, which made me weep copious tears of gratitude.* Of course, as you point out, Paul Bunyan is “fakelore” (folklorismus) anyway.
If people are telling plausible narratives about you, you are legendary. On the other hand, being a legend implies being a subject of multiple, well-known legends. Linguistic inflation, leave my favorite words alone!
*I wanted to join in on the hyperbole.
Wow, this thread is getting epic.