Amazing! Fabulous! Awesome!

[Tango Yankee]

Oldest use I have seen of groovy was a detective story ca.1890. It was used to describe someone as obsessive. "She thought about it too much and got groovy on the subject".

And here I was surprised to see it used in a late '40s trailer for "Miracle on 34th Street"!

 

[Tango Yankee]

Put some clothes on, you kids, get a haircut, and get a job!

I did.

 

[MikeBravo]

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").

No way! Talking like that is a real gasser.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Pray tell, what words would you suggest to expand the populations ability to express themselves?

Great, fantastic, wonderful for starters......

"Amazing" should be reserved for things that truly are - like the birth of your first born, or finding your self still alive when you shouldn't be.....or the sunset from the top of a Colorado Mountain.

 

[Pompidou]

Once weakened, a word can never be made powerful again. It'd be more fruitful to try and coin a brand new word. While we're trying to coin the next synonym for awesome, it might be handy to come up with a swear or two that you can't actually say in polite company. All our current ones don't raise eyebrows anymore. Why, I can't think of a single word that'd offend me.

 

[MikeBravo]

Once weakened, a word can never be made powerful again. It'd be more fruitful to try and coin a brand new word. While we're trying to coin the next synonym for awesome, it might be handy to come up with a swear or two that you can't actually say in polite company. All our current ones don't raise eyebrows anymore. Why, I can't think of a single word that'd offend me.

That is up to the next generation. Awesome is just the modern equivalent of groovy, far out, neat, gasser, hip, hep, ripper etc. used by previous generations. Soon "awesome" will be considered old-fashioned and quaint

Only time will tell which word it will be

 

[rocketeer]

More of my pet hates:-
Uni for University, why not call it University? Its an honor to get there isnt it? So use the full term.
LA, Los Angeles is a beautiful name so why demean it to to letters? We very rarely hear the city termed Los Angeles now. We dont say NY pronounced en why, do we, nor C I for Coney Island or S F though you do say Frisco. Here we will not say SoS for Southend on Sea nor WSM for Weston Super Mare.
Cheap as Chips(very annoying)
Sorted(for getting something done)

 

[bunnyb.gal]

Biccies, choccies, hols...

*yucky*

But what really makes me ill are the media-created truncations and amalgamations of people's names like: SuBo, Kate and "Wills", Jedward, Madge. Besides the fact that most of these "celebrities" are actually "celebrities" for pretty spurious reasons, are we so lazy that we can't even say "Susan Boyle"?

 

[rue]

Biccies, choccies, hols...

*yucky*

But what really makes me ill are the media-created truncations and amalgamations of people's names like: SuBo, Kate and "Wills", Jedward, Madge. Besides the fact that most of these "celebrities" are actually "celebrities" for pretty spurious reasons, are we so lazy that we can't even say "Susan Boyle"?

The combinations are worse.... Bradgelina

 

[Peregrine]

The combinations are worse.... Bradgelina

Over here we have a coalition government between the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg). A combination of those two worthy gentlemen's first names is often used to describe what a large number of people think of them...

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's interesting to compare modern gossip-column slang with that of the man who *originated* the gossip column, Walter Winchell: one of the most ingenious newspapermen ever to sit at a typewriter, the man who gave us "middleaisled" for married, "infanticipating" for pregnant, and "Reno-vated" for divorced among hundreds of other genuinely clever word manipulations. But he would never have stooped to referring to, say, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable as "Gombard."

 

[rue]

Over here we have a coalition government between the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg). A combination of those two worthy gentlemen's first names is often used to describe what a large number of people think of them...

Ah.... but now that's funny! lol

 

[AmateisGal]

I can't *stand* "awesome!" when used by anyone over the age of fifteen. "Fabulous" to me implies something like a line of fifty chorus girls doing a high-kick on top of a fifty-foot high revolving neon wedding cake, not a middle-aged woman going down to buy a carton of Kools in leopard-skin yoga pants. And "Amazing" brings to mind the image of a second-rate stage magician with a clip-on moustache and a cardboard top hat.

There were overused superlatives in the Era -- people used to snicker at movie trailers that promised that every upcoming production was SPECTACULAR -- COLOSSAL -- STUPENDOUS, and if they used such terms in their own conversation they were being sarcastic. But I don't get the sense that when people use Fabumazinawsome today, they're being in any way sarcastic -- they're the only words they seem to know. Except for Cool. And Dood.

Lizzie, you have once again proved, by your excellent writing skills, why you need to write a book.

 

[John in Covina]

But where does this over-use of certain words originate? It has to start with someone.
.

Popular culture and TV/

 

[Gin&Tonics]

I'm rather partial to "magnificent", "splendid", and "superlative" myself. Occaisionally I break out randomly saying "MAJESTTYYYYYYYY" in an overly dramtic, high pitched sing song voice. Yes, I am profoundly strange; I've simply come to accept it, and you should too.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Biccies, choccies, hols...

*yucky*

But what really makes me ill are the media-created truncations and amalgamations of people's names like: SuBo, Kate and "Wills", Jedward, Madge. Besides the fact that most of these "celebrities" are actually "celebrities" for pretty spurious reasons, are we so lazy that we can't even say "Susan Boyle"?

Sports writers used to be notorious for coining lame nicknames like "the ambling alp" "the sultan of the swat" etc but even they never sank that low.

By the way I got a huge laugh out of a supermarket tabloid headline the other day " Brad Pitt's secret life inside" ya right like that guy has any secrets. If he scratches his butt while standing in line at the supermarket you will see the photos on the front page next week.

 

[bunnyb.gal]

Over here we have a coalition government between the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg). A combination of those two worthy gentlemen's first names is often used to describe what a large number of people think of them...

You mean the LibDems, don't you...

 

[randooch]

Over here we have a coalition government between the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) and the Liberal Democrats (led by Nick Clegg). A combination of those two worthy gentlemen's first names is often used to describe what a large number of people think of them...

Davick?

 

[Espee]

I keep finding young waiters and waitresses who have only one way of addressing a party of diners-- "you guys."
My 86-year-old mother has never wanted to be one of the guys.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I keep finding young waiters and waitresses who have only one way of addressing a party of diners-- "you guys."
My 86-year-old mother has never wanted to be one of the guys.

I miss those old time waitresses who called everybody "honey".