Inconceivable!
This thread seems a “hot mess”.
Well, this thread is a surprise. It would never have occurred to me that the phrase “streets ahead” could be so unfamiliar in the US. But here we are.
I just checked my 1981 edition of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and it has an entry for “streets ahead”. So it was well-established by then at the very latest, and pre-dates Dan Harmon’s entire career, and, I’m fairly sure, Dan Harmon himself.
Stop trying to emulate Chevy by coining a new expression. There’s nothing sexy about this thread, and it’s not a dining area.
Continuing the discussion from “Streets ahead” from Community in the wild used for real!:
Is the expression an example of of how many ideas are relative?
My American-born sister lived in England for several years getting her Mechanical Engineering degree. When she returned, she reveled in the vast open vistas in America, telling me it was what she had missed the most - the ability to see so far and also to drive so far and for so long in one direction.
Relevance of my post to the topic: It seems to me to be of British provenance to say “streets ahead” while in America we say “miles ahead.”
It was also used in The Bear. And the person who said it was in relationship with the character played by Gillian Jacobs.
I assumed, like everyone else, that it was a reference to Community, but maybe it wasn’t. If it was, however, I wish they would’ve found a way to have Gillian say it.
I wish people would continue to use it to mock Harmon, but he probably wouldn’t understand that they are mocking him.
I think it’s true that Harmon was unaware that term was being used correctly by the fan. The fan was no doubt British and used the term appropriately. Harmon, thinking it was a made up term at first, mocked it and decided to further the mockery in the Community script. The script would have passed a number of eyes before the scene was filmed, and one of the writers surely would have informed Harmon of the legitimacy of the term (script writers are usually pretty sharp, and aware). But, knowing Harmon, and his skill with meta humor, I believe he would have kept it in (or maybe he knew it was legitimate before the script was written, and proceeded anyway).
To me this makes the scene even funnier. Pierce, a befuddled character, using a real term, thinking it was his own invention and passing it off that way, is meta and funny. I can see Harmon giving an Easter Egg to British viewers who are aware of the term, but it’s still funny to Americans seeing it as clueless Pierce.
Why? Do you assume one of those sets of eyes would have been attached to someone already familiar with the phrase? Because I can 100% believe that it could have been seen by dozens of Americans and not one recognized it.
Yes. I think Harmon as unaware of the term at first, but was made aware of it by the time it was filmed. Someone, a writer, an actor, anyone of a number of people involved in the show would have told him, I believe. Unless it’s a very obscure British term, that is.
Well, at least two people in this very theead never knew about it until yesterday.
I don’t really buy this.
The issue with Harmon discovering that it’s an everyday British idiom is that it makes him look foolish for his over-the-top extended mockery of the usage by an internet commenter who didn’t like his show.
I would have respect for his “meta humor” only if the way he wrote it into the show was clearly self-deprecating. And it’s not, it’s the exact opposite. It sets up an alternate universe where he was “right all along” to mock the internet commenter. The joke in the show is Pierce (representing the internet commenter) coins a ridiculous novel phrase and is justifiably mocked for it.
The impression that I get from the writing in the show is that Harmon is so egotistical and so arrogantly invested in this that he can’t just say “my bad” for his ignorant mockery and laugh it off.
And, of course, the writing in the show is why most US viewers who have seen the show still have no idea that it’s an established idiom and that Harmon made a fool of himself from the start.
Now I’m wondering if wubba lubba dub dub is like, French or something.
I can see it either way.
I don’t think Harmon is the type to be embarrassed by being wrong about mocking an idiom that was used correctly by a fan. If anything, I think he’d find it funny (in a self-deprecating way). If anything, it may have made it stick in his mind, compelling him to add it to a script—knowing full well most Americans would be as unaware as he and take the joke as written. It’s also something that would make British fans think, “hey, that’s a real idiom that we use…that’s funny!” An Easter egg for them.
Of course, Harmon may have been unaware through filming, but I find that harder to believe with all the writers, fact-checkers, etc. involved in a prime-time show.
Has he acknowledged elsewhere that he made a fool of himself from the start? Taken at face value, the way the show is written is the opposite of self-deprecating, and you cannot be self-deprecating in secret. The show is unambiguously doubling down in mocking Pierce for coining the phrase, so you can only reasonably interpret the show as “meta” self-mockery if it’s clear he’s laughing at himself outside the show.
I’m not saying he was incorporating the self-deprecating humor into the show. I’m simply saying, I find it hard to believe that a prime-time show would be produced and aired without someone involved in the show knowing, or learning that a common British idiom (if it is indeed common, I don’t know) was in the script unknowingly, nor telling the show runner about it. If Harmon learned the joke was on him, I don’t think he would do a re-write, he would see the humor in it (maybe at the expense of some laughs on him by staff, hence the self-deprecation), realize the joke still works (for reasons I gave above) and go with it.
That’s not in dispute.
What’s in dispute is whether his reaction upon discovering this can reasonably be interpreted as self-deprecating, or whether he’s too arrogant to concede and publicize the fact that he made a fool of himself.
Because the way the “joke” is presented in the show is designed to double down on his original ignorant mockery and obfuscate the fact that it’s an established idiom.
Perhaps most show runners would not want to be made a fool of publicly, but I don’t think that’s the case with Harmon. He seems to be the kind of person who can take a joke, even at his own expense. In this article, it refers to Harmon’s self-deprecating manner; it appears to be something he’s known for.
In his self-deprecating manner,…[snip]
@WotNot, the comments in the first article linked gave the impression that it is a fairly well known but not common idiom. That few Brits would be likely to utter the phrase, even if most were aware of it.
Is that a fair understanding?
Yeah I think most Americans who have ever heard the phrase only know of it from Community, and would react similar to how I did to hearing used as established idiom in speech, with a double take assuming it had spread out from its use in the show. I am definitely ignorant but I suspect my ignorance is widely shared.
I don’t know Mr. Harmon but reading these articles he sounds like an ass, maybe an ass who knows how to behave in a self-deprecating manner when it serves well, but an ass.
Could be a faulty impression though.
No, it’s a common everyday idiom for me (born in London in the 1960s).