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Word of the Day: Leg up
Leg up refers to an advantage that a person has over someone else.
It usually comes in the form of help that they receive.
You can think about it as lending a helping hand.
If you ask someone for a reference letter when you are looking for a job or trying to enter a university, you hope that the letter will help you get a leg up on other people who are also applying.
Although not acceptable, cheating is another way to get a leg up on your competition.
Luckily there is no shortage of examples that I can show you.
Scandal, disgrace and dishonour.
These are three words to describe what is going on in some Japanese universities at the moment.
First, let’s talk about American football.
Some large Japanese universities have American football teams.
Recently, to get a leg up on the competition, a football coach and his assistant ordered one of their players to ‘crush’ a player on the other team.
The intention was to cause physical harm.
Of course, this is unsportsmanlike.
The offending player followed orders, carried out an illegal tackle behind the play and injured the other player.
Lies, finger-pointing, scandal, disgrace and dishonour ensued regarding the coaches.
The offending player publicly apologized, privately apologized to the injured player at home, and quit football.
Japanese society also considers him a victim because his coaches, who wanted to get a leg up on the competition, ordered and pressured him to harm an opposing player.
The next story I have for you is of a medical university that intentionally prevented female applicants from passing the entrance examination.
Before you read on, think about that for a moment.
A medical university deliberately marked down female students’ scores in favour of male students.
They lowered the females’ grades and increased the grades of male students who had ‘donated’ to the university to get a leg up on their competition.
I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, but I have so much time today, and you can only read so much.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 9th-grade education (age 15).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 58.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.