(no subject)

[jack]

In golf, low scores are good, and there is a term "par", meaning the average expected number of shots to pot a ball in a particular hole: if your number of shots is below par, that's good, and above par, that's bad.

For a long time non-golf metaphoric uses of "par" bothered me. Eventually I decided "below par" could be used to mean (or correspondingly, "above par" the opposite) either numerically lower than average, or worse than average.

This has the advantage that it makes sense to people both ways round, but the disadvantage that the meaning has to be inferred from context. Are we ok with this, or should we attempt to recapture "below par" to mean "worse than average" or even "both worse and numerically lower higher than average"? Was it ever used that restrictedly?

Comments

[teleute.livejournal.com]

I can't think of any situation in which I would use the term 'under par' to mean something that was both below average and numerically superior/better han average. Have you got a situation in mind you could share so I can think about it some more?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was my typo. I edited, meant, like it was in golf.