Second-guessing

Posted by ESC on December 26, 2000

In Reply to: Second guessing posted by ESC on December 18, 2000

: : "Second guessing yourself"?
: : Can anyone explain this phrase to me.
: : Thanks.

: Person A makes a decision. Person B questions the wisdom of that decision. If you are "second guessing" yourself, you are questioning a decision you've made.

SECOND-GUESSING - "To criticize an event after the fact, with the benefit of hindsight. The term appears to have originated in the 1940s in baseball, where it designates after-the-game criticism of how a game was played, the decisions of umpires and coaches, and the like. About the same time it also was used in horse racing to mean predicting the outcome of a race, a usage that is less common. It soon was widely transferred to exercising twenty-twenty hindsight in any area or enterprise." From "Southpaws & Sunday Punches and other Sporting Expressions" by Christine Ammer (Penguin Books, New York, 1993).

• cooter brown rgpaxson 02/19/01