I think that that the dominance of public relations and advertising in our world has upped the ante on hyperbole to the point that we are becoming increasingly immune to mere words such as "talented." In order to capture our attention, people have to be called "geniuses," "brilliant" and other words that used to be reserved for the few who shone more brightly than the rest. Now we are becoming immune to such words because we see them so often attached to people with talent, but who are not heads and shoulders above the others.

The test of time generally separates the geniuses from those who enjoyed popularity during their time, but don't hold up quite so well in the long run. Even then, these are ultimately subjective evaluations.

M.