Adjectives are judgements

‘We’re the best in the business at helping others achieve goals like yours,’ a colleague offered to a prospective client.  

‘Really? How do you know? The seasoned buyer questioned.  

Nonplussed, my colleague, noting that his comment might have been perceived arrogantly, replied with humility, 'we’ve won awards from the industry standard.'

The client was notably only half-paying attention until she heard the declarative ‘best.’  Challenging us and her understanding, she inquired. ‘Best’ triggered something in her and fortunately, by the standard in question anyway, my colleague could back it up.  

Between meetings I got an email from a church talking about how this Sunday’s sermon series would be ‘fantastic’ and ‘moving’ and ‘inspired.’ Recency effect heightened my sensitivity to superlatives such as this, but I reserved my judgement until Sunday.  Then the preacher gave what most would consider a mediocre message.  His talk was predictable, formulaic, surface and on the whole, bad.  I checked my assessment with a few others who had similar enough feelings.  

While my assessment of the preacher may be critical, what struck me was the dissonance created between how the church (or at least the person running the social media account) assessed the yet-to-be-delivered speech and my experience of it.  ‘Inspired’ and ‘predictable’ don’t go together. Was I off? Were they off?  Are they fooling themselves? Are they lying to me?  I had data points beyond this one event, so I began to process what I‘d experienced.

The adjectives we use pass judgement on the nouns they describe.  ‘Best burger in town’ is a declarative statement and creates judgement on other burgers in town.  Now, I’m assessing the burger and you as assessor.  

The question I’m wondering today centers on the dissonance created when the ‘moving’ speech is mediocre or the ‘best burger’ is over-cooked.  What do we do with these opposing data points? They said this was excellent. I said it was terrible. Are they off? Am I off?  

Relationally, I’ve made the same mistake as the burger joint.  ‘Hey man, you hear about that new proposal to the city,’ a friend asked?   ‘Yeah, what a terrible idea’ I offered, assuming he was speaking politically and looking for an ally.  ‘Neat. Thanks for the support.  It’s my idea.’  My assessment of ‘terrible’ was taken as a reflection on him.  Oops.  

So I wonder: where am I passing judgement on something or someone through misplaced adjectives? Where is my definition of ‘best’ less than the standard? When does the dissonance matter?