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.
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