"Creating a robot that can manage to fly around a room on its own without hitting a wall is a mean feat to pull off, but that's exactly what a team of professors at MIT have managed to do."
Is it bad that I'm more interested in the usage of the word "mean" by Conrad than I am in the story itself (only partly true, I'm a fan of UAVs)?
Conrad says "a mean feat", which initially made me think he was misusing the common phrase "no mean feat" in which the word "mean" is used in the old fashioned sense of "base" or "low" or, in this context, "simple" or "inferior". Thus, if something is "no mean feat," then to acomplish it is difficult.
But then, "mean" can sometimes be used to refer to excellence. Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mean definition 2, sense 11) uses the example "He blows a mean trumpet," which seems as good a choice as any.
So, was Conrad thinking of the latter, or am I right in thinking he made an error attempting the more common usage?
I know, more likely than not, no one cares about the ramblings of a pedant, but at least I've amused myself.
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"Creating a robot that can manage to fly around a room on its own without hitting a wall is a mean feat to pull off, but that's exactly what a team of professors at MIT have managed to do."
Is it bad that I'm more interested in the usage of the word "mean" by Conrad than I am in the story itself (only partly true, I'm a fan of UAVs)?
Conrad says "a mean feat", which initially made me think he was misusing the common phrase "no mean feat" in which the word "mean" is used in the old fashioned sense of "base" or "low" or, in this context, "simple" or "inferior". Thus, if something is "no mean feat," then to acomplish it is difficult.
But then, "mean" can sometimes be used to refer to excellence. Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mean definition 2, sense 11) uses the example "He blows a mean trumpet," which seems as good a choice as any.
So, was Conrad thinking of the latter, or am I right in thinking he made an error attempting the more common usage?
I know, more likely than not, no one cares about the ramblings of a pedant, but at least I've amused myself.