A "showstopper" is a good thing. Webster's New World:
1 a song or sequence in a musical theater production, show, etc. so exciting or impressive that applause from the audience interrupts the performanceIt is not a synonym for "deal breaker."
2 anything so exciting, impressive, showy, etc. that it attracts much attention
6 comments:
I've never thought of show-stopper (may I buy a hyphen?) in the negative, but it seems that it's been used that way for over a decade by computer folks in talking about bugs that halt production. It's Wikipedia's first definition. There's a 1994 book about Microsoft with the title "SHOW-STOPPER!", and it doesn't seem to be referreing to the stunning preformance of Windows.
So, perhaps the halt-production connatation is growing outside the computer realm.
there's also a third possibility in between thriller and turn-off, which is close to the equivalent of "conversation-ender." as in, somebody says something that brings an otherwise pleasant exchange to a sudden halt.
I'm not advocating this usage, just noting that is's a more drifty misusage (rather than a full inversion) . . .
Wow ... I was shocked to see show-stopper used as a negative, considering my theater background. Sacrilege!
My brother worked for Ernst&Young, and said that was their term for anything that needed to be fixed before they could move forward.
Looks like we're stuck with it. Are there other words that have gained definitions that are opposites? I think of "bad", but that's moving into slang.
My husband uses "showstopper" that way all the time. I will have to show this to him. Although I wonder about Erik "Babe" Morse's comment, because hubby is in computer science.
Where can I ask a question about the possessive for names ending with s? I have always followed the AP stylebook and made it James' book. I'm being excoriated by some MLA junkie who says it's James's and everything else is wrong.
Lynn
AP style is "James'," but formal style (and even Washington Post style) is "James's."
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