Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
miss the mark
English answer:
not achieve the optimal or desired result
Added to glossary by
Jenni Lukac (X)
Jun 8, 2010 12:34
14 yrs ago
17 viewers *
English term
Liliana Silva
miss the mark
English
Bus/Financial
Business/Commerce (general)
After a growing backlash about the public availability of users’ personal information, Facebook said it would simplify privacy controls on its website and allow users to turn off all third-party services. Some prominent tech bloggers had switched off their accounts because of the complexity of keeping information private. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, admitted Facebook had “missed the mark”.
Responses
| 4 +9 | not achieve the optimal or desired result |
Jenni Lukac (X)
|
| 5 +1 | failed to provide the right solution |
Konstantin Kisin
|
| 4 | fail to meet the standard |
Ildiko Santana
|
Change log
Jun 22, 2010 06:54: Jenni Lukac (X) Created KOG entry
Responses
+9
6 mins
Selected
not achieve the optimal or desired result
The image is target shooting or dart throwing. One aims for perfection but if the gesture or aim is faulty, the result is a failure to achieve a perfect score. Mark Zuckerberg admits that Facebook made various errors of calculation and in the end did not achieve what it set out to achieve.
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
+1
2 mins
Konstantin Kisin
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Native in English
&
English
Specializes in field
United Kingdom
Bilingual Finance, Law & Business Pro
Native in: English 
, Russian
Works in: Russian to English, English, English to Russian
Related KudoZ points
:
16
3 hrs
Ildiko Santana
United States
United States
Native in English
&
English
Specializes in field
United States
Accurate / Fast / Cheap -- Pick Two
Native in: Hungarian , English
Works in: Hungarian to English, English to Hungarian, English, and 1 more.
Related KudoZ points
:
7
fail to meet the standard
Linguistically speaking, "mark" can stand for a) a goal / an objective, b) the condition of being correct and c) a standard or norm. However, in this context, ie. in the particular case of this Facebook (mis)conduct that you can read about all over the Internet, I would rule out that their goal has ever been a user-friendly system for changing privacy settings. The standard is (or should be) that all private information users provide is set to private by default and users then may decide to change these settings to public IF they so desire, while Facebook made everything public from the get-go, with users having to make changes manually through an extremely over-complicated process. See online news on Facebook privacy violation issues and the relevant sections from Merriam-Webster with examples:
Mark (noun)
- goal, object
- condition of being correct or accurate <her observations are on the mark>
- a standard of performance, quality, or condition; norm <not feeling up to the mark lately>
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Note added at 3 hrs (2010-06-08 15:53:58 GMT)
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Sorry, the examples were invisible because of the < > characters. Here they are in quotes:
- condition of being correct or accurate: "her observations are on the mark"
- standard of performance, quality, or condition; norm: "not feeling up to the mark lately"
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Note added at 12 hrs (2010-06-09 00:38:00 GMT)
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The various interpretations of the idiom "miss the mark" are: fall short, miss fire, cause error, give a false impression, miss target, fail, make a mistake, get an incorrect assessment. I think this article will help you decide whether in your context it is used in the "goal" sense (which I doubt but Jenni suggests above) or in the "quality" sense (that's my take). Please see here:
"Facebook Privacy? No Sweat"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/198058/facebook_privacy_no_sw...
Mark (noun)
- goal, object
- condition of being correct or accurate <her observations are on the mark>
- a standard of performance, quality, or condition; norm <not feeling up to the mark lately>
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 3 hrs (2010-06-08 15:53:58 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Sorry, the examples were invisible because of the < > characters. Here they are in quotes:
- condition of being correct or accurate: "her observations are on the mark"
- standard of performance, quality, or condition; norm: "not feeling up to the mark lately"
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2010-06-09 00:38:00 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
The various interpretations of the idiom "miss the mark" are: fall short, miss fire, cause error, give a false impression, miss target, fail, make a mistake, get an incorrect assessment. I think this article will help you decide whether in your context it is used in the "goal" sense (which I doubt but Jenni suggests above) or in the "quality" sense (that's my take). Please see here:
"Facebook Privacy? No Sweat"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/198058/facebook_privacy_no_sw...
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