Epic proportions?

Reader question:

Please explain “epic proportions” in “This is a fail of epic proportions”.

My comments:

In other words, this is a big debacle, a complete failure.

Fail, as in failure. Literally, this is a big failure, incredibly big in terms of, well, bigness.

I know that sounds, like, illiterate, but in plain English, that’s what “epic proportions” mean.

Epic, you see, originally is a long poem chronicling major past events. The Odyssey and the Iliad, for example, are epics by Homer.

Proportions, on the other hand, refer to the size of something in relation to something else. If you wear a shirt that’s two or three sizes too large, obviously, that shirt is proportionally too large for you.

Or, you look enormously too small in that baggy thing, pardon the hyperbole.

As you can imagine, “epic proportions” sound very big, formal and literary. It is.

However, when it’s paired with the colloquial “fail”, you know “epic” no longer sounds so formal and literary.

Not as formal and literary, at any rate, as in “epic battles of the Second World War”.

Anyways, you can describe anything incredibly large in size as “of epic proportions”, especially if you want to sound learned and well-versed (in that you can use big words such as “epic” and “proportions”).

Just use it sparingly.

I mean, do not overuse it, lest it’s devoid of meaning and effect.

All right, here are media examples of things that are “of epic proportions”:

1. Roger Federer is renowned as the master of Wimbledon and nobody has won the men’s singles title more than the Swiss superstar in the competition’s history.

The elegant performer won the competition eight times and with Novak Djokovic stuck on seven titles at the All England Club, he might just keep his sensational record intact for a little while longer.

Federer was an absolute maestro when it came to the grass-court season. Very few got close to him at Wimbledon, much like very few got anywhere near Rafael Nadal on the clay.

As is usually the case with sport, however, there is always a slight blemish in any legendary player’s career and in 2013, Federer was left stunned at Wimbledon, losing in the second round to an opponent who was relatively unknown.

On paper, this was a mismatch of epic proportions. Stakhovsky came into the match having won 12 matches in his entire career on grass, whilst Federer had won 13 titles on the surface.

However, the script was thrown right out of the window by a player who never actually reached the second week of a Grand Slam across his entire career in stunning style.

Stakhovsky went and defeated Federer in four sets in the second round, ending Federer’s remarkable run of 36 consecutive quarter-finals at Grand Slam events on a court where he is considered the best ever.

Stakhovsky was ranked as the world number 116 when he sent Federer into a spin and ended his quest for another Wimbledon crown in 2012, with the Russian even shocking himself.

Perhaps even more remarkably, he lost the first set to Federer too. Stakhovsky lost the tie-breaker before rallying and running out a 6-7, 7-6, 7-5, 7-6 victor to leave Wimbledon stunned into silence.

The player who never went any higher than number 33 in the world rankings was quizzed on who his role model was growing up and starting out in tennis after this win over Federer.

It perhaps won’t come as a surprise that Sampras – and Pat Rafter – were the names that he’d previously considered as players that he actually looked up to as he was starting out in the game.

When quizzed on Sampras and Rafter being his role models, he said in his press conference: “Yes (I was a fan of Sampras). That’s how I try to play. But, sometimes you have to adapt to the tour and you have to play from the baseline.”

- He was the player who modelled his game on Pete Sampras and left Roger Federer completely stunned at Wimbledon, TheTennisGazette.com, April 20, 2025.

2. Nearly four years ago, then-President Joe Biden withdrew U.S. military forces from Afghanistan in a disastrous, ill-planned maneuver that cost the lives of 13 U.S. service members and 170 civilians. Now, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are launching an investigation to determine how the withdrawal was botched.

In a Monday Department of Defense (DOD) memo shared with The Washington Stand, Hegseth wrote, “President Trump and I have formally pledged full transparency for what transpired during our military withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Department of Defense has an obligation, both to the American people and to the warfighters who sacrificed their youth in Afghanistan, to get to the facts.”

“This remains an important step toward regaining faith and trust with the American people and all those who wear the uniform and is prudent based on the number of casualties and equipment lost during the execution of this withdrawal operation,” Hegseth continued. He noted that the DOD has been conducting a months-long review of “this catastrophic event in our military’s history,” beginning shortly after Trump’s return to the White House. However, in order “to ensure that accountability for this event is met and that the complete picture is provided to the American people,” the DOD will establish a “Special Review Panel” to examine previous reviews, sources, witnesses, transcripts, and factual findings and “analyze the decision making that led to one of America’s darkest and deadliest international moments.” Hegseth pledged, “This team will ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people and the warfighters of our great Nation.”

The DOD informed The Washington Stand that the panel will be led by Afghanistan War military veteran and senior DOD official and advisor Sean Parnell, along with Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s management of the withdrawal, and investigative reporter and author Jerry Dunleavy. Previously, Dunleavy played a key role in helping the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee conduct its own investigation and compile its own report on the withdrawal.

In comments to TWS, former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who oversaw the compilation and publication of the report, recounted, “The Biden administration’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan ceded the country to the Taliban, abandoned our allies, and resulted in the deaths of 13 brave American service members.” He stated, “This was a failure of epic proportions, yet President Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress tried to sweep it all under the rug.” The congressman continued, “I’m glad to see the Trump administration putting rightful focus on the impacts of this debacle – as the Foreign Affairs Committee did under my chairmanship – and working to improve accountability, transparency, and procedures to ensure this never happens again. The American people, our Afghan allies, and our Gold Star families deserve nothing less.”

- ‘A Failure Of Epic Proportions’: DOD Launches Investigation Into Biden Admin.’s Deadly Afghanistan Withdrawal, HarbingersDaily.com,
May 21, 2025.

3. Tesla (TSLA) shares crashed 14.3% on Thursday, June 5 amidst a public spat between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. Musk initially took aim at Trump’s tax-and-spending bill, and Trump responded by threatening to terminate the billionaire’s federal contracts and subsidies.

And while TSLA is inching back up on Friday as markets digest the public fallout between the U.S. president and the chief executive of Tesla, Ross Gerber, a renowned investor, says “we’re just getting started with the declines.”

Including the Trump-Musk feud driven selloff, Tesla stock is down some 32% versus its year-to-date high.

Ross Gerber has long been a seller of TSLA stock and now that Trump is going after Elon Musk, he’ll sell it even more aggressively in the months ahead, the market veteran told Yahoo Finance in an interview today.

Gerber expects the billionaire’s feud with the president to prove to be a “disaster of epic proportions” for Tesla stock as “there’s a lot more MAGA supporters out there than Elon supporters.”

Plus, the elimination of EV tax credits under Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” will hurt demand that’s already been discouraging for the automaker in 2025, he added.

…

At the time of writing, he owns about 235,000 shares of Tesla in total – but that’s down some 60% from more than 500,000 shares held in late 2021.

- Can Tesla Stock Survive This ‘Disaster of Epic Proportion’? TheGlobeAndMail.com, June 6, 2025.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）