Awesome – The word of our times

Conversation with a couple of friends-

Friend: Got a new phone! Check it out!

Me: Awesome!

Friend : Getting a promotion again! 🙂 Second one this year..

Me: That’s AWWESOME!

Friend ( different friend…one can’t have it all) :  Guess whom I met?? Gerard Butler!!!

Me : ( wide-eyed, struggling for expression, choking over half-formed words..and then..) That’s AWESOME!

Is it only me, or is everything good, fortunate or beautiful these days termed “awesome”? I don’t at all like the idea that my brain refuses to budge from its set grooves every time I need to find a word to describe..err..awesomeness. Hence, I think its evident that my reluctance to use any other word in its place is a result of the all-pervasiveness of this word in our milieu. I even have proof – watch a few episodes of ‘How I Met your Mother’, and you will know one of the ways in which this word has permeated into the collective consciousness. ‘Awesome’ is the equivalent of the 60’s ‘rad/groovy’, the 20’s ‘dashing’, the Victorian ‘fine’ and the medieval..no, let me not tread these unfamiliar scholarly waters and destroy my credibility 🙂

Anyways, the point is that ‘awesome’ seems to win hands down each time I’m pitting it against other possibilities, in the brief second before mouthing the word. ‘Great’ is too generic, ‘nice’ too dispassionate.. ‘brilliant’ seems inappropriate to use about anything other than bulbs and white teeth.. ‘kickass’ has the word ‘ass’ in it..’mindblowing’ sounds like a word to be used only for special occasions, plus it has a vaguely destructive quality to it..’fantastic’ seems like too much..’fantabulous’ is way too pompous.. In short, not a word that simply means awesome, nothing more, nothing less!

Awesome is the definitive word of our times.. unless I’m making it all up 😀