Consider these Oft used so called PC, yet vague decriptors when referring to individuals of a certain persuasion or affiliation and you realize how lame it sounds-
1. You and your loved ones
2. Men and women in uniform
3. People familiar with the matter
4. Highly placed sources
5. Significant other
Switching gears I began wondering why certain sports or what are defined as a sport get notoriety to where people pay lot of money to see it in person or on other mediums sponsored by large advertising budgets.
Consider the 100 m dash and all other dash variants and you just might see how insane this activity seems. At the end of the 9 or so seconds it's all over and yet it enthralls the minds of many. What exactly does one achieve after running very very fast or cycling till the cows come home that they become national heroes? Not to mention some are later found to be lacking in moral fiber and the same nitwits that paid their last paycheck to see these clowns are up in arms about shattering their role model.
Large sporting equipment makers pay top dollar to have these athletes once from an impoverished continent wear their footwear.
But consider the trapeze artist on a high wire or the contortionist in a circus and there is not that adulation. What makes some act of human exertion Olympian vs the other? It's marketing.
Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
Read Umberto Eco for his take on why all organised sport watching is a fairly useless activity. Worse, it takes away from actually doing something useful to yourself or to others. Except making some (not all) athletes rich, as you point out.
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