I saw a poster at my gym the other day, some kind of new member pitch poster, describing the "state-of-the-art" facilities my gym offers. It should be said that my gym is about as basic as they come. If my gym were to be a video game console, it would be a Super Nintendo. Far FAR removed from the Xbox 360s of the world.
Sure, the poster was there to entice visitors to join the gym, to make them aware of all the great things the place offers, even though the facilities are far from "state-of-the-art". Everything seems to be state-of-the-art these days. It's one of those words that is so overused the original meaning is all but lost.
For the record:
state-of-the-art: (noun) the latest and most sophisticated or advanced stage of a technology, art, or science.
This is not my gym. It makes me sad to see words like this being used so freely and so incorrectly when there is a thesaurus out there somewhere just waiting - nay, begging - to be picked up so a suitable synonym can be found. Think about it: if everything was state-of-the-art then nothing would be state-of-the-art because state-of-the-art is the most sophisticated and advanced stage of something. If everything is the most advanced, then nothing can be more advanced and the whole term is out the window.
So let's just keep it where it belongs (i.e. not my gym) and allow it to live just a little longer.
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