I just happened upon the Star-Telegram’s account of Hillary Clinton’s Tuesday visit to Dallas, which Staci wrote about for us. What caught my attention was the piece’s curious headline:
A “Texas-size crowd”? The article’s own estimate of the turnout was “more than 1,500” people, and Staci tells me the venue could have accommodated more. Does 1,500 people qualify as “Texas-size”?
The headline would seem to be playing off the oft-repeated notion that everything in Texas is big, attributing the quality of our state’s relatively large size to every person and object located within its borders.
But is 1,500 a big crowd for a nationally-known leading presidential candidate? Donald Trump attracted about 10 times as many folks to the American Airlines Center in September. Bernie Sanders rallied about 8,000 here in July. Clinton’s 1,500 seems like nothing by comparison.
I’ve decided to ignore the possibility that the headline writer was merely off his or her game. Perhaps this is instead a brilliant attempt by the Star-T to subvert a hackneyed cliché and to redefine what it means to be “Texas-size.”
The crowd was in Texas, so it could be argued by the strictest of definitions that the crowd couldn’t help but be anything other than Texas-size. I like it.
If we take up the Star-T‘s cause, soon enough every piece of mildly charred bread across our state shall be deemed Texas toast. We’ll all drink in celebration from our Texas-size mugs, enjoy Texas-size side salads, and drive Texas-size Fiats. The phrase will be rendered meaningless and ineffectual. We’ll win, at last, our fight to undo decades of giving the rest of the world the impression that ours is a land of giants.
