Explaining an athlete's performance as due to a "gift" sort of diminishes their effort, don't you think?
I've been an athlete much of my life, competing in some sports at a fairly high level. I know I would have been steamed if I heard an announcer say that I was "gifted" while I was in the middle of a race. I probably wouldn't have had a productive response.
Huh. Respectfully submitted IMHO: no, discussing an athlete's performance in terms of a "gift" does not seem to me to diminish their efforts, kcab. "Gifted" and "hard work" are not mutually exclusive. Taking offense that someone said you were a gifted athlete seems to me like taking offense because someone noticed your eye color. I'd say you could certainly respond, "And I work hard, too," but noting that you have some natural ability doesn't seem offensive on its face to me.
I guess I always took "gifted" to mean "a gift from God/nature," so it's not something that can be lost/taken (short of brain injury). And like any other part of who we are that's present in us from birth, there's no hard work required to POSSESS the gift, any more than there's hard work required to grow long legs or naturally superb eye/hand coordination or perfect pitch in music...or brown eyes. The hard work comes when we try to HARNESS the gift. Rest on your laurels and you will certainly lose at least some of the advantage you gained from your fortunate birth, but you're still likely to be more talented than some people who aren't gifted at that thing, no matter how hard they work.
Working hard doesn't make those athletes/gifted kids any less naturally able. It just means they made the best use of their own personal "standard features" instead of squandering them. There are plenty of kids who work hard to achieve in school and ace every test, but who are not gifted. My DH was gifted, but very nearly flunked out of high school because he did not apply himself. (He later came around and used BOTH his natural gifts and hard work, and got a 3.9something in a tough chemical engineering program.)
Am I off-base here?
