people, new year’s resolutions entail a clean-out of the cupboard or the basement. All those once-useful but now clapped-out gadgets, outmoded or too-small clothes, the cables to devices long since lost, the book that, once read, will never be opened again—off they go to be recycled.Like households, language is tidied and renovated, but constantly rather than once a year. Just as you no longer use the chargers for discarded phones, you can safely forget a generation of earlier tech vocabulary.
A common target for a clean-up is the category of “awesome” words: brilliant, amazing, epic and their like were all once best in class. They have, through endless use, become dilapidated. They commonly feature on peevers’ most-hated-words lists, but there is no real reason to bemoan their rise and fall. Like physical items, terms in frequent use simply wear with repetition. They must be replaced; just as motorists need new tyres every so often, so it is with these words.
In the same vein, “hipster” culture is so dominant, from bare-brick coffee-shops to cocktail bars, that there is scarcely any reason to notice it. Google searches for the label peaked in America in 2011 and worldwide in 2015. Picking on hipsters is passé: the photo-blog “Look At This Fucking Hipster” last posted in 2010.
Hullabaloo
Good riddance to 'awesome'. It should be reserved for things that legitimately inspire awe.
ENBrown (Just to respond to the illustration, I can only wish 'awesome' would drop out of favor)
Representative democracy is due for some for reconsideration in the States.
I DONT USE THOSE WORDS. CRUDE
I've been using 'awesome' for about 40 years, I believe. Kinda think that one's here to stay (which is awesome).