Reader question:

In this headline – New young poets have come to the fore¹ – what does "come to the fore" mean?

My comments:

New young poets have become visible. They have made their presence felt. They are perhaps coming into their own. In short, they are gaining deserved recognition. If they keep getting better, they'll perhaps become a force to be reckoned with in poetic² circles.

Fore means front, as in forefront, foreground. For someone to come to the fore means for them to step up to the front. When you come to the front, say, stepping up to the podium and making a speech, you become visible as you are distinguished³ from the crowd. In other words, you are prominent, influential⁴.

"Come to the fore" may have come from the game of golf. In teeing up, the golfer steps up, comes to the fore to hit the first shot. When he comes to the fore, he separates himself from the rest of the group waiting for their turn – hence the metaphorical⁵ implication of prominence⁶.

It's not always a good thing to come to the fore, though. Everything, good or bad, may come to the fore. And when bad things come to the fore, you've got a crisis on your hand. If abortion⁷, for example, comes to the fore in the presidential race in America, this troublesome issue may be a problem for some candidates – they can no longer avoid dealing⁸ with the issue.

You can best learn about terms like "come to the fore", their hints, shades and nuances, through context via actual examples. Here are a few culled⁹ from the media.

1. Hillary Clinton adopted a sharper tone as she came face-to-face with Barack Obama in a bid to revive her ailing¹⁰ campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination¹¹, but never achieved a "knockout blow", US political pundits¹² said today.

...

Within minutes of the start, negative campaigning came to the fore as the two rivals politely but firmly accused each other of spreading misinformation about the other's policies.

Mrs Clinton said the Obama campaign's fliers had been "very disturbing to me" while Mr Obama replied that her campaign had "constantly sent out negative attacks on us...We haven't whined¹³ about it because I understand that's the nature of these campaigns."

- Neither Clinton nor Obama score 'knockout' (Ireland On-line, February 27, 2008)

2. In the 2002 elections, Islamists here rode a wave of anti-American sentiment over the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. But by the time this vote rolled around, discontent over joblessness, crumbling¹⁴ infrastructure¹⁵ and corruption¹⁶ had come to the fore in the only province the Islamists governed.

- Islamists' loss in Pakistan isn't a US win (Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2008)

3. "The fuel may be free, but all the money in the world won't buy you more of it," says Kenneth Westrick, 3TIER's founder¹⁷ and chief executive and an atmospheric¹⁸ scientist.

Wind power's limitations came to the fore during last week's Texas brownouts, caused by a sudden cold front that killed the wind. That puts a premium¹⁹ on siting for wind farms. By building sophisticated models of a given area's wind potential at different times, and with a host of climactic variables, Mr. Westrick hopes to be able to give wind farm developers more bang for their buck²⁰ (and make some of his own.)

- Mapping the Wind (blogs.wsj.com, March 3, 2008)

4. Zi Yan, hailing from the country's rural province of Sichuan, took up the sport to stay fit. Yan was introduced to tennis at six, when a friend's father taught her the rudiments²¹ of the game...

Her talent came to the fore a few years after she had passed out of school.

"The coach thought I moved fast. He said I could be a professional player," says the world No.55.

- Yan, the new face of Chinese tennis (in.news.yahoo.com/hindustantimes, March 7, 2008).