What have we stopped noticing?
The things we say, do, and accept without thinking twice.
“"You killed it!"”
Praise pictured as killing. The result is so good, the old metaphor says someone is dead.
Look closer where it comes from, what it assumes, and the case for keeping it
A way to say someone did something exceptionally well or produced an excellent result.
The praise uses killing as the picture of success. The person who succeeds is cast as the one who did the killing.
Violence can stand in for intensity, dominance, or exceptional performance without changing the intended praise.
The phrase is usually understood figuratively, with no suggestion that actual violence occurred. In work settings, it can make aggressive action the picture for doing something exceptionally well.
The violent picture is so familiar that many speakers hear the praise immediately and barely notice the literal image. Its energy and brevity are part of why it works.