A Majestic View: Let’s Give “Awesome” a Rest
I held a panoramic photograph of the Grand Canyon aloft in my classroom and asked students to write the first
term or phrase that captured the description of the scene. 20 of 30 students included the word...
More
A Majestic View: Let’s Give “Awesome” a Rest
I held a panoramic photograph of the Grand Canyon aloft in my classroom and asked students to write the first
term or phrase that captured the description of the scene. 20 of 30 students included the word “awesome” in
their attempt to do justice to the grand vista. While the English language continues to expand its scope of
words, and our electronic culture constantly generates imagery that begs for descriptive language, “awesome
inflation” has crippled the expressive dexterity of American English speakers.
With the inclusion of “OK” into almost every world language, even the newest arrivals to American shores
come installed with “awesome” at the centerpiece of their descriptive English vocabulary.
While it took Mother Nature and the Colorado River millions of years to carve the magnificent canyon, in less
than a generation, the description of one of the Seven Wonders of the World has been reduced to a banality.
Ironically, in old English, “
Less