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Reader question: What is “strong suit”, as in “singing is not her strong suit”?

My comments:

They are not talking about shirts and trousers that are enormously too large, or those that are toughened with bullet-proof materials.

“Strong suit”, as a matter of fact, is a term borrowed from playing cards. “Suit” refers to each of the four types of cards (hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades). One’s strong suit refers to the type that is most in number. In a four-player game, for example, each player may end up with 13 or 14 cards. If say you end up with 14 cards including 6 spades, 3 hearts, 3 clubs and 2 diamonds, then spades will be your “strong suit”, or “long suit” as it is the greatest in length. It means, of course, you’re most formidable in that area – spades.

It is no doubt a good idea to attack from spades, your strong suit, and it is usually advisable too for your partner (if you’re playing two against two) to “follow suit”, another term borrowed from card playing that’s common in everyday language, meaning to follow your lead and do the same.

Yes, in everyday language, “strong suit” comes to mean one’s strong point, one’s strength, one’s specialty, one’s forte or one’s core competence, using an up-to-date business jargon. In short, it’s the area where one is particularly good at.

In researching for examples, I’ve encountered quite a few involving Sarah Palin, the failed Republican nominee for Vice-President, who became the laughing stock of America for trying to present foreign policy as her strong suit based on the sole strength of Alaska, from whence she hails. “I can see Russia from my kitchen window”, she infamously boasted in an interview. I’m sure she meant it as a figure of speech and in her mind’s eye, she could see Russia indeed but then I’m not so sure Americans would believe that she had the imagination. Anyways, the damage was done and it was compounded by later revelations that she didn’t know that Africa is a continent either, or that Canada and Mexico belong to NAFTA. As a foreigner, I can understand Palin’s lack of knowledge in terms of the map. Americans in general are notorious in that area. Even though it never prevents Americans from going to wars all over the globe, geography has never been their, er, strong suit.

Ah well, now that you understand the term, we’ll swiftly move on to two media examples involving the said Sarah Palin:

1. Foreign relations never were her strong suit, so perhaps it’s understandable that Sarah Palin actually appeared to believe that French President Nicholas Sarkozy would call her out of the blue to talk about “unting” and “Joe le plumber.”

- Sarah Palin ‘Punk’d’ by Montreal DJ, November 01, 2008, wbal.com.

2. Here’s another point: People who read books and try to keep learning new things as they go through life until the day they die tend to forget this, but most people don’t read books and keep learning. Once they’re done with school, they stop learning everything except that which they need to know for their jobs (whether that job is accountant or IT techie or governor of a small state). Palin seems like such a person. So, obviously, she knew at one point – in third grade or whatever – that Africa was a continent. But if you don't keep learning and using your brain in that way, you forget things. So to me it’s entirely plausible that she just forgot in the moment that the event happened whether Africa was a country or a continent.

If she stopped to think, she’d probably know. But stopping to think isn’t her strong suit. So please God, if You call her back to service, hand her a history book or two first.

- God and woman in Alaska, by Michael Tomasky, November 11 2008, Guardian.co.uk.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.