The Monster Box
January 5th, 2009 by James
A clip of Naoki Iketani attempting to vault over a 21-level “Monster Box” at the 2009 Sportsman No. 1 competition:
For more details about the event, check out Lost in Ube!
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Wow, not at all what I was expecting after that headline. But thoroughly enjoyable anyway!
it was accomplished. no longer an attempt. he did it. wow, and it looks dangerous.
What the other guys said – I saw “attempting to vault over” and thought he was going to smack into the end of it and fail miserably.
Sorry if you were disappointed not to see him injure himself. I didn’t want to spoil the video for everyone by giving away the ending. (The use of “attempting” was intentional, and I won’t correct it.)
Not “disappointed”, just defending proper English.
Isn’t it still an attempt even he succeeds? I’m not native English speaker but still I don’t see the text being wrong in any way. An attempt is an attempt no matter what the result is, isn’t it?
Yes, attempt is fine even though it doesn’t particularly indicate success (and has failure implied in most instances).
I think the title is fine… I was pleasantly surprised when he made it over the box.
Yes, an attempt is an attempt no matter the outcome, but…
In general usage, if you say someone is currently (now, in the present) “attempting to do something”, it means he has not actually successfully done it yet. Hence he is “attempting” to do something. Eventually he may succeed, but that time has not come yet.
If you are talking about an event that has already passed, like Iketani’s jump over the “monster box”, then “attempt” takes on the meaning of “failure”. “Here’s a video of Iketani attempting to jump over the box” would normally be interpreted as “Here’s a video of Iketani failing to clear the box”, since if he succeeded then his attempt was successful, hence he is no longer “attempting” to clear the box.
Something like “Here is a video of Naoki Iketani facing the challenge of jumping over a 21-level ‘monster box’” would avoid giving away the result (which is what James was aiming for), and as it is neutral in tone it would remove the reader’s preconception that the attempt was going to end in failure.
‘A clip of Naoki Iketani’s attempt to vault ‘
this would have been better! but still suggests failure.