The never ending battle against hyperbole
 

Excellent! Fantastic! Amazing! Incredible! Awesome!!! Egregious! Disastrous! Outrageous! Shocking!!!

Are you as tired of these words as I am? Today they are most commonly used to mean the equivalent of "good" and "bad."

For example, mom says "Junior finished all his homework." and Dad replies "Fantastic, that is so awesome!"

No it isn't. It might be "good." It probably should be considered "expected" or "adequate." Maybe, if you are really trying to give encouragement, you would say "great." I see the negative hyperbole used in the realm of politics on a daily basis going back for the past 10 years, but other than to observe that the last 4 or 500 "disastrous" decisions resulted in to disaster at all, I won't go into any further detail on that subject.

I find it is difficult not to get caught up in this trend. At a new restaurant I may exclaim that the appetizer was "awesome." My dinner mates all agree. Yet our faces showed no expression of awe. We continue talking about other subjects, belying the notion that any of us were in awe of the appetizer in the first place. This trend has become so severe that I often find people grasping for words to express something that is truly impressive. "That was unbelievably awesome!" "He was very very excellent." "That action was horribly egregious."

I'm not sure how we got like this. It would be too easy to blame the internet, but maybe billions of people struggling to be noticed were forced into overstatement to get the attention they sought. Over the last couple of years I have found myself re reading my writings to make sure I have not overstated the importance of something. Do you find yourself to be victims of the hyperbole movement? Do you do anything to combat it?

A phrase that might be added to your list is "Good Job!"

I hear that phrase so often from parents when their child has done something even very minor.

I really don't think it is good to be constantly telling children, "Good Job!," for every little thing.

I'm sure that many parents would disagree with me, though.

Are we just showing our age? I do agree with all that you wrote Bill and am concerned about young people coming into the real world of work where they do not get all the praise they deserve. Then again, it would seem that many have fallen into the same trap and the hyperbole continues and no one knows the truth as the nation slowly goes down the tube.

When it comes to children I believe they should get as much praise and encouragement as possible. I don't care one bit that it might be exaggerated. A lot of the praise when I was growing up seemed to be back-handed. "We always knew you could do it!"

plagiarism

I don't think that praise and encouragement are the same thing, though.

And, what I am talking about that I don't like is saying, "Good Job," constantly all day long for every tiny little thing.

Although it might seem that that is a good way to build up self esteem in a young child, I don't think so.

Bill, I am sorry if I have hijacked your thread.

I do think that what I have posted about is somewhat relevant to the discussion, but maybe not.

No, it's fine. Your comments tie into my here-to-fore undisclosed theory about how we got to this red-hot-mess of misappropriated adjectives and adverbs. It's awesome, I tell ya!

Thanks, Bill!

I just knew I was so awesome! :)

(I'd like to hear more about your undisclosed theory. Maybe, after we get some more "class participation," you can reveal your theory to us.)

Sue, you should be really sorry.