Everything is so fucking "amazing" these days. "Movie X' is amazing. "Record Y" is amazing. "Book Z" is amazing.

If you pay attention to people's speech patterns these days, then you will come to hate this word. It is the ultimate lazy man's non-description, a word used by the person who cannot be bothered to describe the relative merits of the "amazing" thing at hand.

This word is also ubiquitous. Here's some perspective: a search of this website reveals 441 posts that feature the word "amazing". On the other hand, there are exactly 174 posts that feature the word "albini".

Jesus H. Find a new word, hipsters.

It's pretty amazing you would bring this up today, Brad. I had this totally amazing yogurt this morning. It was Caramel Underground and was so not made by Dannon. It had that fruit on the bottom thing going on, but there was no fruit - it was caramel! It tasted like, umm, caramel times three!

Awesome.

Salut, the Brad!

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when everything became "amazing" but it's been going on for way too long now.

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:Everything is so fucking "amazing" these days. "Movie X' is amazing. "Record Y" is amazing. "Book Z" is amazing.


This word is also ubiquitous. Here's some perspective: a search of this website reveals 441 posts that feature the word "amazing". On the other hand, there are exactly 174 posts that feature the word "albini".

Doh! I believe I am a major offender. I cop to it. I think it was me who used 431 of those 441 matches. OK, ok. I will now try my best to use alternative words such as..

-neat (as in "Wow! That woman sure is...neat.")
-the tits (as in "man, hot chocolate is the tits!")
-jesus-like (as in "your ripping guitar solo was jesus-like.")
-caramelicious (as in "this yogurt is caramelicious".)

...starting....NOW.

Superinsanelyamazing.

Agreeably, the overuse of the word "amazing" as stated by Mr. BRW is total crap. Therefore, I vow that my only future use of this word will be to highlight irony, and will be cued visually by the most ironic of punctuation marks, the "...".

Additionally, in places where I would have used the A-word, with no intended irony, and because I do hold fond personal regard for a word with two A's, a Z and a M, I will use this fine exclamatory:

SHAZAM*

(*connoting the original Captain Marvel exclamation and not the Gomer Pyle bastardization.)

Thanks again, Mr. BRW, for a totally shazam poll.

what are some other good words? amazing may be the word du jour, but there's probably always a handful of words being heavily misused in the popular arena.

so what are some other good ones, while we're at it... "good ones" meaning piece of shit words that nobody uses properly these days. in this work-a-day world.

excellent
sweet
awesome
radical
killer
cool
great
rock/rocks (as in "that rocks!")

sucks
lame
stupid
gay
retarded
shitty
crap

etc

i think one of the more interesting facets of this phenomenon is the element of acceptance without question, and bradley that's awesome that you're not falling into that trap. it just becomes popular and acceptable to misuse a word in a way that most people seem okay with. like using "amazing" to describe something about which you were not genuinely surprised. or "awesome" to describe something that didn't truly inspire a sense of awe.

i like, and highly recommend, the word "compelling" in place of the word "amazing". for me at least, very few things truly amaze me anymore. but i think much of the time, when someone says "amazing", they actually mean something more along the lines of "compelling" or "interesting".

so bradley, what's your position on the word "astounding"? okay because it's less pervasive? i propose that we all make a concerted effort to work the word "astounding" into our vernacular, in place of the word "amazing". if we pull that off, it'll be s'awes.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:so bradley, what's your position on the word "astounding"?

Compare!

"The new Silkworm record is amazing/awesome/astounding/compelling."

versus

"I enjoy the new Silkworm record because the songwriting, performances and recording are excellent."

or

"I enjoy the fact that the new Silkworm record represents something of a departure from the signature Silkworm sound."

or

"I enjoy the intelligence and sense of humor displayed in the new Silkworm record."

Mitch Hedberg had a great bit about how he said "totally" too much and needed to get a new word.

"Mitch, do you like submarine sandwiches?"
"All-encompassingly!"

Priceless.

I get frustrated when folks are in a communication rut and use the same word over and over. I'm prolly guilty of it too, but with the phrase "and whatnot" tacked to the end of sentences. My students pointed it out once and I cringe every time I hear myself say it.

Crap.

Faiz