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Phrase: In the crosshairs
The first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase in the crosshairs may be a gunsight.
While that is the modern-day perception, crosshairs were initially used on telescopes and microscopes so that scientists could better focus their instruments.
You may also be surprised to learn that the original material used for the ‘crosshairs’ was not hair at all; rather, it was spider silk.
For this reason, they were often called spider lines or spider’s lines in the early 1800s.
These days, when something or someone is in the crosshairs, they are the target for something.
If you have a goal of improving your English language skills and are focused on that goal, it is in your crosshairs.
In sports competitions, teams or individual athletes have rivals they want to defeat.
In these cases, they aim to overcome a particular team, break a personal record or surpass someone else’s achievement.
On September 9, 2017, Yoshihide Kiryū became the first Japanese man to clock the 100m sprint in under 10 seconds, coming in at 9.98 seconds.
For him, the record had been in the crosshairs for quite some time, and Japan was closely following him, hoping that he would one day break the record and set a new one.
Kiryū did it, and now he will live on in history.
To have something such as a goal or dream in your crosshairs is not a negative meaning.
However, if someone has you in their crosshairs, you may not feel comfortable.
Yes, Kiryū has set the new record, but now he is and will forever be in the crosshairs of other up-and-coming runners who want to break his record.
Records are, after all, made to be broken and having a goal in your crosshairs will help you get through the daily grind.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 70.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.