THE SPEEDIEST TAUTOLOGY

How many times do we need to hear that it's a race against time? Every other movie trailer, it's a race against time. The book jacket of all those John Grisham novels - it's a race against time. The latest TV drama show, you guessed it, it's a race against, that's right, say it with me, time.

Is anybody even trying to race against anything else? Is it even possible not to race against time? Isn't that really what makes it a race?

You're watching the athletics, all the guys are lined up on the starting blocks, the gun goes and - zoom! - they're away. They are all racing against time. Without time, there wouldn't be a race. Sure, they can race against each other, I'm not denying that. But really, without the time aspect, there's not much of a race. How do you know who came first if you ignore the time angle? The person who crosses the finish line first, does so because he's reached it in less time than his opponents. He's raced against time.

So let's stop with the "race against time". Unless the movie promotion guys and the book people and the TV trailer folks are going to offer us a viable alternative type - it was a race against yogurt, say, or it was a race against gravity - let's just call that a race, shall we?