It seems impossible to me that after a decade of verbal abuse AWESOME is still clogging the word-o-sphere. It's AWESOME this, AWESOME that, AWESOME the other and the next thing. It's the thing your kid told you about, the thing the sports announcer described, the rapper decried, your neighbor relayed, the description of your girlfriend's latest shopping spree, the exclamation regarding your son's report card , your husband's recent threesome dream, the overambitious expectation of your daily doings--Have an AWESOME day. It must be AWESOME and if not, you're sure to have bummed somebody's trip.
You may not know anything else about what's coming your way but you certainly know this: Some part of that thing that you have yet to know about will be AWESOME. Guaranteed. Bonafide. Dyed-in-the-wool, believe it or not, nothing that compares to--TOTALLY AWESOME!
Do you know why it will be AWESOME? Don't give me that look of perplexity because you know. Oh, YOU KNOW. You just won't admit it to yourself. Face it.You don't have to dig down very deeply to get it. It'll be AWESOME because everything that's part of the way to pretty good or even most of the way to A-OK these days is AWESOME. And if it's not AWESOME it's TOTALLY AWESOME!
Ugh.
Here's what I propose: There is a strong likelihood it's not going to be AWESOME. It's going to be SOMETHING ELSE that requires a different adjective than AWESOME.
Word, people:
AWESOME has been thoroughly overused, abused, sacked, raped, pillaged, and has incurred a social disease of the worst kind: AWESOME is dying from a severe case of AD NAUSEUM. AWESOME has become trite, hackneyed, disingenuous, weak and flabby. It doesn't mean anything anymore except an over exuberance of false emotion, lack of imagination and sheep-like devotion to popular verbiage.
In an effort to reduce the the edema of misuse/overuse/hyperbole of this once special and now all too common word, I'm going to offer you some alternatives to AWESOME suggested by the main authority I most often consult, Thesaurus.com:
| alarming ,amazing, astonishing, awe-inspiring, awful, beautiful, breathtaking, daunting, dreadful, exalted, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frantic, frightening, grand, hairy*, horrible, horrifying, imposing, impressive, intimidating, magnificent, majestic, mean, mind-blowing*, moving, nervous, overwhelming, real gone, shocking, something else, striking, stunning, stupefying, terrible, terrifying, wonderful, wondrous, zero cool Antonym: unamazing. |
Here are a few of my own:
earth-shattering, sphincter-clenching. goose-bump inducing, pit-drenching, panty-dampening, eyebrow-raising, heart-thumping, daze-inducing, fusion-inspiring, Maker-awakening, mountain-trembling, jaw-dropping, irrepressibly bouyant, teeth-grinding, knee-knocking, headlight shining, pants-wetting, chest-beating and so on...
It's time folks. It's WELL BEYOND time to pick a few new adjectives and set our vocabularies free.
I can't tell you how AWESOME it would be if AWESOME moved back to its rightful place, ie., in relation to descriptions of extraterrestrials, miracles, telekinesis, alchemy, reanimation, spontaneous human combustion, plagues, acts of God, etc..
Variety is the spice of life. Care to partake?
Please feel free to comment and/or add to my list of superlatives. I would be be happy (overjoyed, thrilled, satisfied, appreciative) to see the list grow to afford us all a bit more verbal latitude.
