www.alphadictionary.com

for the ages

This cliché, meaning 'remarkable' or 'memorable', has become very prevalent in British journalism in the past year or so, especially in sports reporting. E.g. "a game for the ages", "a performance for the ages". It is often an exaggeration; one doubts whether the match or feat in question will really be so noteworthy in retrospect.

Is the expression equally fashionable in the American media?

Not that I've noticed.

The one that gets me is how everything is unprecedented. It's getting annoying.

When I saw this I thought of Shakespeare, as I often do when I see a cliche. But it was not he, so my thoughts turned to his contemporary, Ben Jonson. But again it was not he. In his praise of Shakespeare, he wrote

He was not of an age but for all time!

and narrowly avoided the cliche. A link to Ben Jonson's poem for those who want to enjoy the line in context is below.


I also looked up the phrase "for the ages" with the Ngram viewer and found that it has enjoyed a surge of popularity during the last few years.

Link to Ben Jonson's poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/ ... hakespeare
Link to the Ngram "for the ages"
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3