Is a 'show stopper' bad... and other things

[EinsteinaGogo]

A thread about a thread (eeek!).

On a current thread, the OP is selling her house, and mentions there are one or two show stoppers about the property that are very clearly described in the details.

Therefore - any viewers who book an appointment, look around the house, then feedback that the show stopper is the reason they don't like it, are unreasonable.

The OPs home showstopper isn't stated, but it's clear that 'show stopper' is a negative .
Something like no parking, leasehold of 1 year, built on a train platform, about to be bulldozed by Christmas, etc.

To the OP - and me, and a handful of other posters - a show stopper is something negative - an obstacle hard to overcome. To the majority, it's a positive - something brilliant to make everyone gasp in awe.

What is a show stopper to you?

AND

Do you have any similar tales of using a phrase (any phrase) in a different way to its general meaning?

As work, a show stopper is definitely bad, because it's something which stops the show, which is usually a project some sort.

It has very positive connotations to me.

At work, show stopper = deal breaker = bad

I used to be a tester. A showstopper is really bad - it will delay the launch of whatever new product we're testing until it's fixed

I’ve always associated showstopper as something absolutely outstanding that blows all other efforts out of the water.

I’d use deal breaker for the situation you describe!

A showstopper is amazingly good. Jawdroppingly, the competition is now over, drop the mic, good.

(Just pulled the Oxford Dictionary of English off the shelf, and relieved to see it agrees with me)

Interesting. It’s definitely a negative for me. Like FeelTheRush above, I’ve often seen it used in corporate project management jargon. A showstopper is very bad news - a problem so insurmountable or cock up so major that the whole project grinds to a halt or fails.

Show stopper is always the very best of something.like a show stopping performance of someone on the stage, acting. singing or dancing etc.

Showstopper can be positive or negative - it basically boils down to "it stops everything in its tracks until something happens to restart it" - and the context defines which it is.

"That was a showstopping performance" = Positive

They were so good that the whole show had to wait until the applause had stopped in order to continue. Certain shows have "showstopper moments" where they know something is going to happen that will induce a strong audience reaction and so they have built in time (eg adding extra bars of music to songs etc) to accommodate it so that it doesnt throw out their timings.

The bug we found in the code was a showstopper = negative.

The bug that was found was so bad that literally everything has had to stop as the process cannot proceed until it is fixed.

Personally I only really use it in a positive context, negatives are usually "deal breakers" or "project killers"

A show stopper is when something is so amazing the audience just claps and claps and the performers have to pause because no one can hear the performance.

Definitely something good to me
so I was one of those confused by the other thread

The negative meaning comes to mind first for me. A problem or issue that's of maximum severity, that prevents progress if it's not fixed.

Both meanings share the aspect that progress is stopped. It's just whether it's stopped because something is so awesome you want to applaud it, or so terrible you've got to deal with it.

I would associate showstopper with both positive and negative. You should be able to tell which it is from the context of the rest of the sentence/tone.

I think historically I would have normally have heard it used as a negative but more recently, I've heard it used as positive.

I didn't see the thread but if someone described show stopping elements to their house that might prevent a sale, I'd be very clear about the fact it was negative. I would be happy that the word had been used correctly.

I've looked in several dictionaries online to check. A couple only have showstopper as a negative but the more comprehensive dictionaries have it as both a negative and a positive. There are no dictionaries which only describe it as a positive.

The screenshot attached is from the Cambridge Online Dictionary.

Postive some thing amazing.

I'd say it can be either! Bit it's the context that mattered and in this case I'd say negative.

Oh he's @ExhaustedFlamingo has said the same. I hadn't read that far

Like working in a pharmaceutical plant if we had a showstopper it would mean something had gone so wrong we couldn't continue to make the drugs. Therefore "stopping the show" as it were and not making drugs = a lot of sick people.

@RichardMarxisinnocent - we call that a "shipstopper", cos it stops us shipping.

A showstopper can be good or bad. If something stops the show it's a showstopper. That can be amazingly good or amazingly bad.

The people on the house thread pretending to be confused were the same people who pretend not to understand when someone makes a grammatical error like brought/bought or borrow/loaned. Disingenuous and just using it as a chance to feel like they have superior grammar.

@CoffeeRunner

A show stopper is amazing, awesome, something to take your breathe away.

It’s most definitely good. So good it stops the show. Nothing else competes type thing.

In my line of work, a show stopper is most certainly not a good thing and will normally end up costing shitloads of money at some point.

Show stopper = bad

Outstanding is a similar one for me.

It's used at work mostly in a negative way, in the sense of issues or problems that haven't been sorted.
But then obviously it means something that stands out for being good.

I’ve only ever heard it used in the negative sense and largely at work. I know it also has a positive meaning but usage in that sense strikes me as quite dated.

For us - business context - its always bad. Either for us or for the competition. Its
A showstopper product is one that makes everybody else’s pointless. Great if its yours, not so much if it’s competition.
Similar for the bake off cakes. the competition doesn’t even need to try, they have no chance. So its bad for the majority of people. Show‘s over, go home and cry for most.
in the context of the post on house purchase, the OP was clearly on the looser side (where the majority are by definition), so bad

A show stopper to me, in legal jargon, ie when dealing with contracts. Is something which could make some people pull out of a deal. You've mentioned some examples like no parking. That is a showstopper, also being situated on a busy roundabout. Etc. But if mentioned in the particulars and people still give it as the reason they're not interested, it's entirely reasonable. Sometimes people need to suck it and see, so see how they feel about the showstopper when there, some descriptions could be exaggerated or positive qualities of the home may outweigh the negative.