AWESOME!
One of the recent buzz words which started among the sub-teens has now spread to the teens and into other areas as well.
Those elements of our daily living which were thought to be set apart as something superior of special were, at one time, not too many years ago, all said to be "keen". They are currently considered to be: "awesome."
I first noticed it among ten or twelve year-olds, then the upper teens adopted it as standard and now I find it in the sports field and just about everywhere. The winner of the stock car races speaks of many things proving to be "awesome " about his crew and about his victory. It has become a stock answer for sports figures being "interviewed" and it has eliminated some of the "y'know" and some "ers" and" uhs", as well. "Awesome!" seems to be a sufficient , all-inclusive statement by such sports greats.
I'm hearing it in politics, as well. George W. Bush's tactics for raising funds for his election were called "awesome!", Donald Trump's maybe. No!-don't-think-so”- candidacy bore the same, one-size-fits-all label on the TV and radio news when people are asked what they think of it, as did Warren Beaty's hint of a run. They were all "awesome!"
The speed of our advances in the Iraq war, called for the generous use of the term on network news, that's when it was overused, perhaps.
I've been trying to remember what some other overused terms such as this have been in recent years. There was time, I recall where "hugh-mongous" was popular, but I don't recall, how it was spelled. Before that, 'way back, we spoke of things as being "peachy" or "peachy keen". That was in the 30's, perhaps, and it came back, in part, in the fifties and sixties as just "keen. When our daughters were in high school, everything commendable, I remember so well, was "keen" or "keeno!"
There were, certainly, many others along the way.
Another area of word kill is more general in that certain buzz words become standard in print and in advertising of all kinds. The one that is beginning to wear a bit thin right now is “lycopene” which is much desired. How about "antioxidants" which just about everything is said to be “free of” or “full of?” We have gone that round with "cholesterol", as well as a long stint with "chlorophyll." Ad agencies seem to cluster their productions around such terms as they become popular and try to play all angles as long as the word endures.
If you don't know what to say at any given time or place, and especially if you have no comment in mind ...just say, with confidence: "It's awesome! I think it is absolutely awesome!"
That'll have to do, until the next buzz word comes along.
A.L.M. June 11, 2003 [c526wds]
