The vogue word of the year so far is extreme. It has been around for centuries, deriving from the Latin superlative extremus, ‘outermost’. But for the English word recently a flavour of danger and convention-breaking has developed. ‘Extreme’ sports are those like mountaineering or paragliding that offer physical risks. Now extreme is taking on a life of its own. Soon one will not ask ‘Extremely what?’ People will exclaim ‘Extreme!’ as they do ‘Gross!’
Indeed, extreme as a noun has already acquired this connotation: ‘It does give lovers of arthouse extreme something to get their teeth into,’ said the Scottish Daily Record of some dreadful American movie.
Telly enjoys extreme sport and there is money to be made. The ‘Playboy X-treme Team’, made up of Playboy ‘Playmates’, entered a race in Borneo that entailed kayaking, mountain-biking and trekking through jungle.
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