A Pet Peeve: The word 'Awesome'.

[Aristus]

It's the superlative for illiterates.

They never use 'grand', 'splendid', 'incredible', or even 'awe-inspiring'; it's always 'awesome'.

[salin]

1. no dude... its like totaly radical.

:evilgrin:

[PVnRT]

2. Nice to know I'm illiterate...

:eyes:

Would that we could speak the Queen's English like good little upper-class grammar school attendees...

[Aristus]

6. Sorry, IAJSR, I tarred with a pretty broad brush, I know.

I don't mean people who use the word now and then; I mean the ones who use it to describe EVERYTHING. Most of the ones I know who do are functional illiterates who can't get their heads around words like 'superb', 'glorious', 'capital', and so on.

See the "Literally" thread.

[bif]

3. Awesome post!

n/t

[brainshrub]

4. You beat me to this post...that was awesome! (nt)

[kmla]

5. Let's not forget "extreme".

It's to a point where I will avoid a product with the expression 'extreme' in it's ad campaign.

Extremely tired of that word.

Knowhatimean?

[Aristus]

7. Extremely.

n/t

[Cannikin]

8. this is SO lame..I mean, gag me with a spoon...totally.

[ScreamingMeemie]

20. I thought they changed extreme to Xtreme. Heehee.

I can't stand it. I mean, how can juice boxes be Xtreme???

:hi:

[arwalden]

9. I'm So GLAD You Brought This Up. Thanks For An Awesome Post!!

We should all be more aware of the awesome responsibility we have.

[beawr]

10. Absolutely Right

Although folks that misuse this word are pretty quickly identified as morons, so I guess it has its good points. Awesome does mean something that can produce AWE. If so much is awesome, we are a truly easily frightened people.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

11. Not necessarily easily frightened...

awe

n.

A mixed emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired by authority, genius, great beauty, sublimity, or might: We felt awe when contemplating the works of Bach. The observers were in awe of the destructive power of the new weapon.

Archaic.
The power to inspire dread.
Dread.

But I do agree, "awesome" has been overused. Like, totally. :P

[Rattlesnake]

12. Awesome is a good word.

It describes everything that is grand and splendid, without having to remember those words.

Just like swearwords. They describe so much in just one word. :)

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Hey Aristus! Awesome Post!!!

Sorry, i just could not resist.
The Professor

[Aristus]

14. LOL!

Thanks hilarious, Prof! :-)

[CO Liberal]

15. Reminds Me Of An Old Joke

(updated for today's jargon)

Teacher: There are who words that you should never use. One is "awesome", and the other is "bogus".

Student: OK, teacher - what are they?

[TXlib]

16. Even worse: fuckin'

It's the generic adjective, or verbal particle, of illiterates.

When I was a freshman in college, my winter job was working in a door shop, assembling doors.

The other guys working there hadn't finished high school, and were in their 30s and 40s. Several had petty crimes on their record and served time in county lockup.

They peppered their speech with 'fucking' as a generic adjective, with zero emotional intensity behind its use.

A car wasn't a car; it was a fuckin' car.

A CD wasn't a CD, it was a fuckin' CD.

The phrase, "Pass me the fuckin' staple gun" did not imply the speaker was irritated that you were hogging the staple gun, or that he was annoyed because he had been looking for it.

It was really irritating because the word was so overused, I couldn't tell when somebody used it out of anger, surprise, pain, etc, or if they meant it as I would mean "um".

[Rattlesnake]

18. I'm an educated person...

and I say fuckin' all the time. I use "fuckin'" when I'm irritated and angry. It's just a good word. :)

[TXlib]

19. Yes, but do you use it as a verbal particle?

Do you use it devoid of any emotion? All the time? In at least 1/4 of all your sentences?

[TXlib]

17. Growing up in Boston in the 80s

Everything was "wicked awesome" or "wicked cool", or just "wicked".

I hated that term.

[Cat Atomic]

21. The first time I heard "awesome", it was coming from Bill & Ted.

And that's where it lives my brain. So when I hear someone say, "our god is an awesome god", it just breaks me up. Seriously. It's all I can do not to say, "well my god is totally boss!".