In the most recent edition of the free local community newspaper we get in the mail, the cover story was about a former school principal saying she was ‘awed and humbled’ after getting a newly opened school named after her. ‘Awed and Humbled’ was the actual headline.
It made me wonder, as it has in the past, why people use the word ‘humbled’ when getting an award or other positive recognition. It just seems like the polar opposite to the actual feeling one would have in that situation.
I mean, obviously you don’t want to say “I’m feeling extremely conceited to receive this award! I’m really full of myself right now!”. But there are many more accurate, yet still respectful, terms people can (and often do) use. Like "grateful’ or ‘honored’.
It just seems not only inaccurate to say ‘humbled’, but also downright disingenuous. False modesty. If you are able to remain humble after being feted, that’s great, but that would be in spite of the positive recognition, not because of it. At least, in my humble opinion. Am I right to think so?
Chico in A Night at the Opera, disguised as an honoree:
When we first started out, we got no idea you give us this grand reception. We don’t deserve it. When I say we don’t deserve it…believe me, I know what I’m talking about!
Every time I win an award I think, “thank God someone was paying attention to all my effort.”
Probably not great for an acceptance speech.
Though I also do think about all the help I got and feel grateful for that.
The awards I’ve received have been mainly academic, but I guess there’s a little award process when I win a big grant, even though it’s on a small scale. I take an honest assessment of how much was me and how much was other people and give credit accordingly. But it’s always we: we won a grant. In private I might tell my husband, “Yeah, that was 90% me.” If you can’t brag to your spouse, who can you brag to?
I was keynote speaker for a small award event once in graduate school. The award was given by a Black faculty group to several students including me. It was specifically for “combatting American racism.” I don’t remember the full speech but I said something like, “This isn’t an achievement; it is a call to action.”
I did mean that sincerely, but I also appreciated the award, because I had in fact been working my ass off.
That’s what an award means to me: “Hey. We see you.”
It’s not really about humility or conceit, just feeling appreciated.
I think it’s one of those words that people have heard other people use in similar circumstances, and thus think it’s the appropriate word. Strictly speaking, “humbled” (according to a thesaurus) means humiliated, mortified, abashed, chagrined, shamed, or embarrassed. Not something you would want to say if a city park were named after you.
I would used “honored” should the occasion arise. I would not be “humbled,” unless they were naming the city dump after me.
It’s just one of many words people use incorrectly. For example, “irregardless” isn’t a real word, yet we hear it all the time. “Presently” does not mean “right now.” It means “in the near future,” yet people often use it to describe something happening right at that moment.
And don’t get me started on the incorrect overuse of “surreal.”
However, there’s no reward in being labeled the grammar police, and should anyone ever call me that I would assuredly be humbled.
I think people probably say humbled because they didn’t expect to get recognized and they may not feel they deserve it. So it might actually be a little embarrassing for them. If you get an award and you don’t think you really deserved it or you feel embarrassed by the attention, that might actually be the appropriate word.
It’s also hard sometimes to determine how much other people are responsible for the success of something vs you. It’s not always a neat delineation. So I could see someone getting an award where they weren’t quite sure if someone else deserved it more.
Generally any time anyone achieves anything it’s because other people made it possible. The great leaders we admire were supported by a whole team of people. I try not to forget that.
I don’t think they are using it incorrectly. They are using this meaning
They may well be using it insincerely. But not incorrectly. They are saying they are embarrassed to receive the award. They are modestly implying they don’t deserve it.
The OP is exactly correct. It’s a great feeling to win.But it is also easy to be a good winner so acting humble helps. I used to say, “Stripped to it’s core, racing has only 2 rules. 1 - we start here, we end there. 2 - The first one there wins. Everyone else loses.”
I’ve always associated it with a feeling of smallness compared to the size of the reaction. I associate it primarily with there being a lot of people involved in the honor being presented, or a lot of praise.
I wouldn’t quite call it being embarrassed or thinking you didn’t deserve it, though those feelings might be present in small amounts. But I think the bigger ones are feeling overwhelmed and deferential.
The head of the lab I worked for had an open space next to his Olympic gold medal (really—yacht racing) for his expected Nobel prize. It never came but the case was arguable. I doubt he would have been humbled.
I wonder whether anyone has ever won both.
I just asked prof. Google who says that Philip Noel-Baker has an Olympic silver medal (1500 meter run, 1920) and a Nobel Peace Prize (1959).
I wonder if it might have started from an error in language.
It might have been common for people to say they were “honored” to receive the award, but they will “remain humble”.
And then at some point it mutated into “humbled”.
Because I’m with the OP thinking it doesn’t make sense.
Of course, a lot of language doesn’t make sense. And if enough people take the meaning to simply be “grateful and not big-headed about it”, then that’s what it means in this context. But we’re not 100% of the way there yet; certainly it’s not an expression I’d use personally (were I to ever win anything).
