WORRIED ABOUT AWESOME

Lately I’ve been worried about awesome. Awesome has become my go-to (a little worried about go-to too) word for everything that’s, well, awesome.

I tweet “Awesome recipes!” No matter what my kids say in an email to me, I reply, “Awesome!” And when Casey performs his new trick of using doggie steps to get up to my bed, it’s “Awesome!!”

Do all my awesomes sound like I’m trying to seem young and cool—the language equivalent of someone my age wearing short, short skirts and skimpy tank tops?

Do my awesomes sound disingenuous, given how liberally I dispense them?

Do my awesomes sound meaningless, offering the reader or listener no picture whatsoever of just what about the subject is so awesome?

For help, I turned to urbandictionary.com. Here are three entries from the twenty-one pages about awesome:

1. Something Americans use to describe everything.

2. An overused adjective intended to denote something as “cool” or “great” but instead winds up meaning “lame.” This is actually a reflection of the lameness of person using the word.

“This pizza is awesome” (when the pizza in question comes from a food court at the airport)

3. A ‘sticking plaster’ word used by Americans to cover over the huge gaps in their vocabulary. It is one the three words which make up most American sentances. The American vocabulary consists of just three words: Omygod, awesome and sh*t (my asterisk, the use in this context of which, according to UD, means I am “pious”).

OMG, now I realize that I’m also worried about OMG. When I first started blogging, I learned that, instead of OMG, the Chinese were saying, Oh My Lady Gaga or OMLG and, trying to be cute and cool, I used that too.

Turning again to Urban Dictionary, this time for OMLG, I learn that I am sooo 2010:

1. the term Oh my lady gaga is a popular chinese expression used instead of oh my God. the Cosmopolitan magazine is calling it the expression of the moment (end of 2010)

2. 1 thumb down. It’s primary use is to destroy the English language.

Now my mind leaps to btw and btdubs, which is something else I am prone to write. All well and good, but when I started to type btdubs into Urban Dictionary’ search box, the below dropdown of choices appeared and now I’m terrified I won’t be able to resist using btdubzilla or btdubzinski or my own pasta-like verson, bedubzalini:

btdubs

btdubstep

bt dubstep

btdubz

btdubzilla

b.t. dubzinski

Urban Dictionary on btdubs:

1. It makes little sense, as the term itself has as many syllables as the phrase it’s meant to abbreviate. Accordingly, it’s degenerated into a cutesy term used mostly by girls, often ones named Kerry.

Urban Dictionary on btdubzilla:

1. ‘by the way’ of gargantuan importance.

It’s been awesome playing UrbDic with you but Oh My Lady Gaga, I better get back to work!

As for “awesome,” how do YOU *d.w.i.?

*deal with it

Btdubzilla, check out some of my awesome posts on Life Goes Strong:

*Top 10 Halloween Costumes: Do It Yourself!

*A Woman Talks About Sex From Her 20′s To Her 60′s (fascinating and relatable)

*Survivor: Sex on the Island and Other Insider Scoops

*Are You Having Less Sex Than You Think You Should? One Woman’s Story

*Can Working Women Have It All?

*Hipster Dog Names and Quirky Dog Photos

*Joyce Maynard Adopted Two Girls From Ethiopia Then Gave Them Up

*A Great New Way to Date

*Living Together: Men Speak Out With Advice About Sex and More

*Family Vacation With My Ex & Daughters

*He Asked, “Am I Going To Die?” I Had To Tell Him, “Yes You Are.” Beth’s Story

*How To Organize

*Can Separate Bedrooms Save Or Destroy A Marriage?

*11 Fat-Burning Foods And Awesome, Healthy Recipes

 

 

 

 

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