boom!

English translation: That's it! /It's all over!/ Utter destruction!/ Apocalypse!

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:boom!
Selected answer:That's it! /It's all over!/ Utter destruction!/ Apocalypse!
Entered by: Yvonne Gallagher

04:49 Jan 24, 2019
English language (monolingual) [PRO]
Government / Politics
English term or phrase: boom!
Hello everyone,

From the book Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.


ELEVEN
Is God in Cyberspace?

There has never ever been a time when the human being was capable of doing something and yet, eventually, that something did not happen. That means one of three things: 1) the human psyche is going to change fundamentally (good luck with that!); 2) the worldwide social contract changes so that the “angry men” can no longer be “empowered” (good luck with that too!); or 3) ***boom!***
—Garrett Andrews, online comment on my October 21, 2015, column on NYTimes .com

Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our [expletive] problems.
—Comedian Samantha Bee, commenting on the Orlando massacre on her TBS show, Full Frontal, June 13, 2016

I have been on the road selling different books ever since I published From Beirut to Jerusalem in 1989. I’ve given several hundred book talks to different audiences. So what’s the best question I ever got from someone in the audience on any book? That’s easy to answer. It was at an event at the Portland Theater, in Portland, Oregon, in 1999, when I was promoting The Lexus and the Olive Tree. A young man stood up in the balcony and asked me this question: “Is God in cyberspace?”

I confess, I didn’t know how to answer his question, which was asked with the utmost sincerity and demanded an answer. After all, mankind had created a vast new realm for human interaction. (If the supernova is somewhere between Heaven and Earth, who is in charge there? Amazon or God on high?) The question seized me. So I called one of my most cherished spiritual mentors, Rabbi Tzvi Marx, a great Talmudic scholar whom I had gotten to know at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and who now lives in Amsterdam. I hoped to enlist his advice on how I should respond.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/boom

noun
a deep, prolonged, resonant sound.
the resonant cry of a bird or animal.
a buzzing, humming, or droning, as of a bee or beetle.
a rapid increase in price, development, numbers, etc.: a boom in housing construction.
a period of rapid economic growth, prosperity, high wages and prices, and relatively full employment.
a rise in popularity, as of a political candidate.

What is the meaning of "boom" here? Does it imply something negative like a sound of explosion, sounds of war?

Thank you.
Mikhail Korolev
Local time: 12:46
That's it! /It's all over!/ Utter destruction!/ Apocalypse!
Explanation:
not necessarily a war as such but complete destruction... (NB not "self-" destruction)

life on earth will come to an end
we're all done for

(unless humankind changes...which seems unlikely to happen)

And yes, the word is onomatopoeic
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/boom
2. bang, report, shot, crash, clash, blast, burst, explosion, roar, thunder, rumble, clap, peal, detonation

I'm also reminded of the ending of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" where the ending is much quieter but disastrous nevertheless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men
https://www.shmoop.com/hollow-men/poem-text.html

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 days 9 hrs (2019-01-26 14:07:18 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Glad to have helped.
Selected response from:

Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 09:46
Grading comment
Many thanks to everyone.
Thank you, Yvonne.
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



SUMMARY OF ALL EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED
4 +4War/self-destruction
Vinícius da Silva
4 +1That's it! /It's all over!/ Utter destruction!/ Apocalypse!
Yvonne Gallagher


  

Answers


20 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +4
War/self-destruction


Explanation:
It means war or any other kind of self-destructive event.

Vinícius da Silva
Brazil
Local time: 06:46
Native speaker of: Portuguese

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  philgoddard: It's not totally clear, but I think this must be the meaning.
36 mins
  -> Thanks!

agree  Jack Doughty
1 hr
  -> Thanks!

agree  Tony M
3 hrs
  -> Thanks!

agree  Thayenga
9 hrs
  -> Thanks!

neutral  Yvonne Gallagher: Really a disagree. It's not a (drawn-out) war as such but complete cataclysmic destruction. It's not "self-" destruction either
1 day 7 hrs
Login to enter a peer comment (or grade)

8 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
That's it! /It's all over!/ Utter destruction!/ Apocalypse!


Explanation:
not necessarily a war as such but complete destruction... (NB not "self-" destruction)

life on earth will come to an end
we're all done for

(unless humankind changes...which seems unlikely to happen)

And yes, the word is onomatopoeic
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/boom
2. bang, report, shot, crash, clash, blast, burst, explosion, roar, thunder, rumble, clap, peal, detonation

I'm also reminded of the ending of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" where the ending is much quieter but disastrous nevertheless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men
https://www.shmoop.com/hollow-men/poem-text.html

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 days 9 hrs (2019-01-26 14:07:18 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

Glad to have helped.

Yvonne Gallagher
Ireland
Local time: 09:46
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 56
Grading comment
Many thanks to everyone.
Thank you, Yvonne.

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Charles Davis: Yes, a single, cataclysmic, universal explosion (the way we imagined nuclear war when we were growing up, but now maybe terrorists)
38 mins
  -> Thanks! Indeed! Yes, I remember we got booklets about how to prepare a shelter under the stairs and food to hoard there (but we didn't have any stairs:-)!)

neutral  philgoddard: I still have that booklet. It was called Protect and Survive.
1 hr
  -> why the neutral?
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