A: Remember the restaurant in Nanshan where we once had a dinner? How about dining there this Saturday evening?

B: The restaurant is nice, but too far out. I have booked the ticket to a concert this Saturday. So I can’t make both occasions.

A: Is that a concert by the Berlin string quartet we listened to last year? Their fusion of jazz and classical is really far out!

Note: Literally meaning “far from the center,” this term also means “excellent and daringly unusual.” This slangy expression originated in jazz about 1950, where it was used for particularly avant-garde performances. Almost immediately it was extended to mean outstanding. It is used both as an adjective (“this performance is far out”) and as an interjection (“This is great — far out!”). Its overuse soon made it a cliche.