The title. I never understood that expression… can someone help?
Edit: auto correct on ‘someone’
In: 1694
It’s to analyze or reference something from outside of the subject.
You’re watching a horror movie. There’s a noise outside, and the lady gets up to check it out. You yell at the screen “hey dummy, you’re gonna get your head cut off!” Then you complain to your friend about how stupid people are in horror movies. Except the character on the screen has no reason to think she’s even in a horror movie. You are bringing your outside knowledge (your meta-knowledge) to the film. She has no way to know that a bunch of teenagers got chopped up at the nearby cabin by the lake. Normal people investigate noises all the time. Usually it really is just the wind, or just a cat.
You are playing a Pokemon game against your friend. You know which ones are good and which ones are bad. You know that water Pokemon are strong against fire, and that fire are strong against, umm, wood Pokemon? (I don’t play Pokemon, I’m not sure). This is not meta-knowledge. But you also know that your friend just *loves* water Pokemon. He talks about them all the time. So you pick electric Pokemon or something. That is meta-knowledge.
You are using information from outside the normal subject to help make decisions.
Some characters are “meta”, in that they break the fourth wall and talk to the audience. Or they know that they are in a movie/comic book/whatever, and comment on it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=men+in+tights+i%27m+not+supposed+to+lose&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS785US785&oq=men+in+tights+i%27m+not+supposed+to+lose&aqs=chrome..69i57.7491j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0b04f26c,vid:Lzeqbws7FiE
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