At the conclusion of the Mastermind 2023 series on BBC Two earlier this week, presenter Clive Myrie declared that the achievement of the winner, Stuart Field was "absolutely incredible".
The abuse of the once rather useful word "incredible" by people in the media has long been a source of pain to those of us at Ramblings, who believe that words ought to have some sort of integrity, and who reject Humpty Dumpty's famous dictum that "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less". 1 We have tried to adapt to some modern usages. But Mr Myrie has taken Dumptyism2 to a new high. Mastermind is a quiz show in which whoever scores the most points wins. That the winners often painstakingly research subjects of zero interest to the rest of us - Mr Field chose the BBC TV show Extras as his special subject - does not tarnish the result. It doesn't matter if the other candidates in the final score just one point and someone scores two - that person will be declared the winner. Therefore there is nothing whatsoever in the least remarkable, in any way, that someone won. And therefore that achievement, in itself, is not even incredible, alone absolutely incredible.
What therefore compelled Myrie to reach for the super-superlative to express his inability to put any credence upon Field's memory for television trivia? Did Field utterly trounce his rivals and score more points than has ever been known in the venerable history of this show? No. The scores were 20, 22, 22,24,25 and his score was 28. A good result, certainly. Possibly impressive. But not incredible.
Perhaps Field had to battle obstacles hitherto unknown to Mastermind contestants? Did he have to learn three obscure foreign languages within a month? Did he have to memorise the contents of the West Yorkshire (he is from Sheffield) telephone directory for March, 1958 and cross-refer each name to whatever their descendants are currently doing? Was he compelled to travel from his home to the TV studio by pogo-stick, blind-folded and being harassed all the way by Rottweilers? No, I don't think of any this applies, fascinating though it would be to watch.
Does this therefore come back to the obsession in the media to build up every TV moment as special and as better than the last? Will next year's winner be greeted by "That's so staggeringly incredible I'm going outside to jump off Tower Bridge"? Wouldn't it be nice if Myrie simply said "You've scored 27 points, everyone else scored 26 so you are the winner, jolly well done and now, for an encore, you can pogo-stick your way back to Bolton. Nigel, release the Rottweilers!"
Ah, well, must break off. I'm going to have an utterly unbelievable cup of tea, the weather is simply amazingly normal for this time of year and I shall soon watch some World Championship snooker, a pastime to which "incredible" is, on occasion, le mot juste
Footnotes
1. Alice through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
2. [Must we? Ed]
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