How It's Used

"But when the movie was over, [Charlie] Weis took the motivational ploy over the top. And in the process he showed that when it comes to grasping his unique new job, he simply gets it. Gets it better than any Notre Dame coach has gotten it in a long time. Weis walked to the podium and told the team, 'I could tell you what "Rudy" was all about. But why don't I have the real Rudy tell you?'

“With that, 5-foot-6 Daniel 'Rudy' Ruettiger popped out of his seat in the theater. Invited from his home in Henderson, Nev., to South Bend, Ind., by Weis for this special screening, he'd snuck in near the end and had been sitting anonymously among the players….

“By the time Ruettiger got to the stage, the players got over their shock and got on their feet. They gave Rudy a standing O.”

—Pat Forde, “Weis Embraces Intangibles Only ND Can Offer,” ESPN.com, August 11, 2005.

"Sometimes the absence of a number is as deflating to an article's credibility as the presence of a deceptive one. Few articles noting that President Bush received more votes than any candidate in history also mentioned that more people voted against him than any candidate in history. Quoting Michael Moore's assertion that standing ovations in Greensboro, N.C., proved that 'Fahrenheit 9/11' is 'a red state movie' disregards the fact that metropolitan Greensboro has over 1.2 million people; you could probably find in a population that large enough people to give a standing O for a reading of the bylaws of the American Dental Association."

—Daniel Okrent, "Numbed by the Numbers, When They Just Don't Add Up," The New York Times, January 23, 2005.

R.M. Vaughn: You know that Toronto audiences are notoriously reserved.

John Leguizamo: Oh, really. That's gonna be a challenge. 'Cause my audiences in America are really, really rowdy. So, it's like a matinee audience?

Vaughn: Probably not as elderly.

Leguizamo: Ha! But as quiet and reserved, and you think they're hating you, and then at the end they give you a standing O, and you're like, “Oh, you were into it, okay.” Like that? I'm glad you told me that, I would have taken it as, “Oh, wow, I guess Canada's not for me!”

—R.M. Vaughn, "Will he finally get the last laugh?" The Globe and Mail, July 10, 2009, p. R4.

"Often the Republicans sat out the standing O's or sat motionless while the Democrats applauded and hollered. When the president said he was determined to cut taxes and even the Republicans clapped, Obama smiled and said: 'I thought I'd get some applause on that one.'"

—Tom Shales, "Obama: Read his lips—and his body language," The Washington Post, January 28, 2010, p. C01.

Links

Related on eAlmanac
The Great White Way
West End (Theater)

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on Standing Ovations
New York Times article "The Tyranny of the Standing Ovation"