You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There are two words that make me look forward to the end of the Olympics. One is "awesome," which I won't go into in great detail because Louis CK covers the same ground perfectly in "Hilarious." There have been two things that have inspired awe in me this Olympics- Maroney's vault in the team competition of women's gymnastics, and the entire USA-Canada women's soccer game. Nothing else. Lots of exciting things, lots of drama, but awe?

But awesome is one of those words that's overused all the time. For this particular period, nothing sets my teeth on edge like the word "redemption." After hearing it endlessly repeated on TV, I guess what put me over the edge (at least today) was a headline in the sports section that said something like "Redemption for Raisman." I like Aly Raisman. She's an excellent gymnast and she's in the tribe, which I'm thinking is maybe almost as rare as African American gymnasts.

But I'm having difficulty coming up with someone less in need of redemption than gold-medal-team-member Aly Raisman. Redemption from what? Finishing 4th in all-round on a tie-breaker? Really? She needs to redeem herself for that? I suspect that even making the all-round final in the first place was beyond her expectations. If you're going to go to a hackneyed phrase, icing on the cake is more appropriate than redemption.

It might be more bearable if it didn't seem like the folks who decided what the overall theme would be had said, "Aha! Redemption! That's it!" and then instructed all the announcers that they would be summarily fired if they did not use that word at least once in describing anyone who at some point in the near or distant past had not had everything go right for them. This means even Michael Phelps, who was by most measures pretty successful last Olympics, needed redemption for not practicing so hard for the past 4 years. If you're willing to bend the word's meaning so that it applies to everything short of 100% perfection, you're going to have it at your disposal always.

Come to think of it, I am seeking redemption this school year, for not keeping my desk neat and organized last year. I'm seeking redemption this summer for not finishing everything I meant to do last summer. I'm seeking redemption this morning for not doing dishes last night. And of course I'm seeking redemption for spending so much time watching the Olympics (and the Tour de France before that) that I've not gotten nearly as far creating my new class as I'd like to have done.

Will I get all the redemption I seek? Inconceivable!


(the section I referred to starts around 1:50) Parental discretion advised.