JustAlilBit
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What does it mean? "living up to the hype"
Living up to the hype
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TheParser
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***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello,
1. My dictionary tells me that no one knows the origin of that word. It means exaggerated promotion or publicity.
For example: Go to Dr. X. She is the greatest, most fabulous , most beautiful, and most intelligent doctor in the whole
world and even in the universe!!!
Do you think that it would be possible for Dr. X to "live up to the hype"? That is, do you think that she could actually be
the greatest, most fabulous, most wonderful, and most intelligent doctor in the world? Of course, not!
2. In country X, the media (newspapers, TV stations, etc.) hype [this can also be a verb] certain politicians as being
almost supermen. Of course, no politician can be a superman. They cannot live up to the hype (that is, they cannot be
the person that they are said to be by the media). When the people see that a certain politician does not live up to
the hype (exaggerated claims), they are very disappointed.
James
Hello,
1. My dictionary tells me that no one knows the origin of that word. It means exaggerated promotion or publicity.
For example: Go to Dr. X. She is the greatest, most fabulous , most beautiful, and most intelligent doctor in the whole
world and even in the universe!!!
Do you think that it would be possible for Dr. X to "live up to the hype"? That is, do you think that she could actually be
the greatest, most fabulous, most wonderful, and most intelligent doctor in the world? Of course, not!
2. In country X, the media (newspapers, TV stations, etc.) hype [this can also be a verb] certain politicians as being
almost supermen. Of course, no politician can be a superman. They cannot live up to the hype (that is, they cannot be
the person that they are said to be by the media). When the people see that a certain politician does not live up to
the hype (exaggerated claims), they are very disappointed.
James
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It may be the case that nobody knows where the word came from, but it seems to me likely that it's a back-formation from the prefix 'hyper-', meaning something like 'extreme' - as in 'hyper-critical', 'hyper-ventilate, 'hyper-active', and so on. In fact, that last one is so common that the '-active' part is often dropped in informal speech - 'Don't let him drink fizzy drinks. He gets hyper when he has too much.' - but I don't imagine this informal noun is the source of the new noun 'hype'.
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