If there's one phrase that's guaranteed to drive me nuts, it's state-of-the-art.
And I keep coming across it time and time again in copy.
What the hell does it mean, anyway? In the last few weeks, I've read about:
State-of-the-art bloody kitchens
State-of-the-art bloody jewelry
State-of-the-art bloody tattoos
State-of-the-art bloody websites
State-of-the-art bloody training
State-of-the-art bloody fitness
State-of-the-art bloody interactivity
State-of-the-art bloody health care
State-of-the-art bloody bollocks, I say.
Wikipedia, which as we know, is famous for getting things wrong, says:
The state of the art is the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field, achieved at a particular time. It also applies to the level of development (as of a device, procedure, process, technique, or science) reached at any particular time usually as a result of modern methods.
It goes on to say:
The earliest usage of the term "state of the art" documented by the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1910 from an engineering manual by H.H. Suplee titled Gas Turbine.
State-of-the-art bloody gas turbines, then.
It means nothing. If you tell me that you've got state-of-the-art bloody sunglasses on, or a state-of-the-art bloody toaster or a state-of-the-art bloody anything, I won't believe you.
Please stop saying 'state-of-the-art'. It's as bad as 'awesome'.
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