Do justice
Today’s word is a little complicated , but I’m going to try to explain it the best I can. The term is, “do justice” to something. Earlier in the program, I was talking about Stephen Hawking’s research into physics . As I was reading and writing, I found that even basic explanations of his work were too complicated for me to understand. I knew that I couldn’t summarize them for you very well in this podcast. If I tried to do so, I’d probably get it wrong or miss a big point. I couldn’t do his work justice. That means I couldn’t appreciate it, explain it well, or be fair to it. I don’t have the understanding to fairly and accurately explain Dr. Hawking’s career, so I couldn’t do it justice.
This is one of those cases where I think some examples are better than further explanation . Here are a few more examples:
Have you ever seen a bad picture of a beautiful person? Imagine if there’s a picture of a really beautiful person coughing or sneezing ; it’s just not a good look. You can say that that picture does not do that person justice. It doesn’t accurately capture how beautiful the person is .
This weekend I saw the movie, “Call Me By Your Name.” If you said the movie was about a family’s summer in Italy , I would say that description doesn’t do the movie justice, because the movie is about so much more than just a few months in Italy. It’s about love, age, identity, culture, expectations , family, things like that. Just saying it’s about a summer in Italy doesn’t do it justice. It doesn’t accurately or fully describe what the movie is really about.
The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum —or a building in which a person is buried . Do you think that description does justice to the Taj? I don’t think so ; the building is a majestic tribute to an emperor’s wife and is an architectural gem . It’s one of India’s proudest cultural attractions. Just calling it a mausoleum doesn’t do it justice.
So now I hope you know why I said I can’t do justice to Stephen Hawking’s career— I simply don’t have the knowledge or understanding to accurately describe his work.
That’s it for today’s episode . If you’d like to get in touch, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook under the user name, PlainEnglishPod or you can send an email to jeff [at] plainenglish.com. Thanks for listening . On Monday’s program, we’ll talk about the rising popularity of eSports
Learn to express your best ideas
Get the tools you need to speak more fluently in English
