Amazing! Fabulous! Awesome!

[LizzieMaine]

I use that, and also 'fabuloso' a lot. Fabuloso is Polari, I think.

I taught a young man a couple of years ago who's entire vocabulary seemed to start with F and end in K, especially when being 'dismissive of his peers'. I tried to convince him to be a little more creative with his rebuttals, e.g. 'You sir, are a cad!' or how's about 'You absolute rotter!'

It didn't work!

"You feculent swine!" is a favorite of mine. "Offscouring of humanity!" is another.

 

[Noirblack]

It's more the lack of real expressiveness in the words that are used, as far as I'm concerned. Slang in the era had infinite shadings of meaning -- something could be swell, nifty, swanky, ritzy, spiffy, peachy, solid, snazzy, snarky, top-drawer, first-rate, or grand -- and all of those terms meant something slighty different. When something is "awesome!" that really doesn't tell me anything. Is Mount Rushmore "awesome?" Is a bowl of chicken noodle soup "awesome?" It doesn't really seem to *mean* anything, at least not to my hearing -- it's the "you know" of intensifiers, a placeholder word thrown in because the speaker doesn't seem to have anything else to say.

An intensifier is a word like "very" or "really". Intensifiers are applied to adjectives to make the adjective stronger.

For example, in the sentence "That is a very interesting book" the word "interesting" is an adjective, and it is intensified by "very".

The words "awesome", "fabulous", and "amazing" are all adjectives rather than intensifiers.

 

[John in Covina]

Scintillating

 

[rue]

Excellent!

 

[rue]

We should bring back snazzy. What a snazzy tie. You look snazzy today. No one will know what the hell we are talking about.

I use "snazzy" all the time and you're right.... people just give me a strange puzzled look lol

 

[rocketeer]

I think I object more to the overuse of cool as a concept than its overuse as a word. At least there's no pretentious social cult built around the idea of something being "nifty-galifty."

We used to get our faces slapped -- hard -- for using the word "suck" in any context not involving a straw. I had no idea why until I was in high school.

You have to watch American Pickers to see the ultimate over usage of the word 'COOL'
Just about anything that has any connection to old stuff is described as cool, the skinny guy(sorry I dont know his name but he usually drives the van) describes anything he likes as cool and I bet he says cool more than 400 times in any show.
I also try not to use words connected with tv, one of the worst is in the Simpsons when Homer says 'Doh', a British version is 'Job done'. Awesome always translates as mediocre to me and anyone who ever says 'Have a nice day' gets a cold stare. Sorry but this last is a meaningless statement imported to us from the US (translates as 'Goodbye')
J

 

[Miss Sis]

I like to vary the words I use as much as possible. One job where I worked at least once a day they all used to stop and say 'Whaaaaat?' to some word I would use, then I'd have to explain it. I hope some of my impromptu English lessons rubbed off and they learnt something new!

I recently used the expression 'You're a real swell!' to a friend who'd done me a favour and 'It's the tops' regards a new item of vintage clothing another friend had acquired.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

One job where I worked at least once a day they all used to stop and say 'Whaaaaat?' to some word I would use, then I'd have to explain it.

That's better than this one friend of mine whose response in similar situations is "a whooey?" :doh:

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Howzat again?"

 

[bunnyb.gal]

You have to watch American Pickers to see the ultimate over usage of the word 'COOL'
Just about anything that has any connection to old stuff is described as cool, the skinny guy(sorry I dont know his name but he usually drives the van) describes anything he likes as cool and I bet he says cool more than 400 times in any show.
I also try not to use words connected with tv, one of the worst is in the Simpsons when Homer says 'Doh', a British version is 'Job done'. Awesome always translates as mediocre to me and anyone who ever says 'Have a nice day' gets a cold stare. Sorry but this last is a meaningless statement imported to us from the US (translates as 'Goodbye')
J

"Simples" is something I'm hearing more and more...I'm not fussed hearing it from the mouth of a meerkat, but from humans it's really starting to annoy me.

 

[DesertDan]

"Bully" seems to have been rather popular in T. Roosevelt's time.

 

[scottyrocks]

We should bring back snazzy. What a snazzy tie. You look snazzy today. No one will know what the hell we are talking about.

I say 'snazzy' a lot when it's picture day in my school. The kids have never heard it before (except maybe from me) but they know it's a compliment and they like it.

 

[scottyrocks]

Well, that leads right into the whole Californication of our culture -- the whole valley-girl/surfer/slacker/beach bum thing that's been engulfing us like a gigantic suntanned amoeba since the sixties. It was bad enough they took the Dodgers, now they're coming for the rest of us -- but as a flinty Northeaster born and bred, I resist this with every fibre of my being. Put some clothes on, you kids, get a haircut, and get a job!

Indeed.

 

[skyvue]

Awesome's a word that, with its excessive (based on its original meaning, something that inspires awe) usage in recent years, has been cheapened ("epic" is undergoing that same process now), but think of the words that no longer mean remotely what they used to.

"Fantastic" is one example; it now means stupendous or great or marvelous or fill-in-the-superlative-of-your-choice, but it used to mean something closer to "beyond belief."

You can often hear the word used the old way in 1950s sci-fi movies: "Why, that's fantastic!," exclaims the local newspaper man when he realizes that the glowing red amoeba has doubled in size in the hour that has passed since it emerged from the flying saucer that crashed in the desert just outside of town, but what he actually means to convey is something more like "Why, that's beyond belief" than "Why, that's wonderful!"

 

[MikeBravo]

This thread is absolutely amazing.

Oh man, it's fully sick

 

[Flicka]

Oh man, it's fully sick

Wicked!

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

But where does this over-use of certain words originate? It has to start with someone.
So I will start to use one of my favorite oldies, "peerless", to describe what everyone deems awesome, just to see if it catches on.
Just think, if everyone that reads this thread were to start using it too, I would bet it would supplant awesome in about a month's time.

 

[MikeBravo]

But where does this over-use of certain words originate? It has to start with someone.
So I will start to use one of my favorite oldies, "peerless", to describe what everyone deems awesome, just to see if it catches on.
Just think, if everyone that reads this thread were to start using it too, I would bet it would supplant awesome in about a month's time.

Valid!

Australian readers will certainly know of Santo Cilauro. He has been trying to get the phrase "valid" into common usage, sadly with little result. It needs to be accompanied with a wagging of the finger toward the other person speaking.

 

[Shangas]

Oh man, it's fully sick

Please stop. I'm turning green and nauseous just thinking about it...

"Snazzy", I use pretty often.

"Bully" I also tend to use (as in "bully for you" - 'Good for you').

Another older expression I use tends to be 'book' as well. As in "make book" ("To be/make certain/sure of something").

 

[Angus Forbes]

Gross! in place of stercoraceous! as any suitably educated person would say . . .