In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 12 Jun 2021 11:21:58 +0100, "NY"
wrote:

"Buck Fiden" wrote in message
...
On 6/12/21 2:06 AM, micky wrote:
Just this past week I heard someone say on the news, "This was obviously
the hardest decision of my life". We don't know what other decisions
he's had to make, or how hard that one was. There are other examples
that are even worse.

"This was obviously the hardest decision of my life" may be hyperbole, but
it could be taken at face value: the speaker knows what decisions he's had
to make up to now in his life, and judges the one he's talking about to be
the hardest of those (without enumerating all the decisions).

For sure. He can decide it was the hardest, and I'm not challenging
that. But no way is that obvious to the people he's talking to.

He didn't mean that it was obvious to himself.


Obviously
no-one can compare it with decisions in the future which they have not yet
faced, but I'd take "of my life" to mean "of my life *so far*".