THE RISE OF "AWESOME" by Robert Lane Greene

Central Argument: The use of words change overtime.

We use the word “awesome” for anything we think of as even slightly good. “These shoes are awesome!” “The movie was awesome!” You are awesome!” Our generation thinks of it as slang. It is hard to believe for us that this word is actually used in the Bible a number of times. It describes God as awesome. In the Bible it is used more like a formal adjective then slang. It is true that words get transformed with time. Different generations can use words differently.

We can take the word “nigger” as an example. Americans used it at the time of slave trade in America ages before. It was just another word for black slaves. The slaves themselves called themselves niggers. In the book Roots, which is about the slave trade in Africa, the word is used absolutely freely and it even shows that the black slaves didn’t mind it even a bit. It surprised me a little as now, I’m pretty sure, an African-American could sue someone if he or she used the word. It’s like a swear word now. Blacks take it as a huge offence now as it relates to the slave trade.

I was having a really bad cold the other day and I was telling my friend how I used to use eggs to play Holi (an Indian festival where people put dry and wet colors on others). And she said that I was extremely sick. Well, I literally was sick with a blocked nose and an itchy throat. I wonder how the word “sick” started getting used to describe something disgusting. Its literal meaning is being unwell, but our generation uses it to describe anything repulsive and filthy.

We have a tendency to play with words and change the way they are supposed to be used. It might be because we forget about the real meaning of the word or it might be because of something historic, as in the case of the word “nigger”. The word came up because of the slave trade and the use ended as the trade ended. “Sick” just got transferred with time. It went from “I am sick” to “It makes me sick” to “It’s sick.” I guess we all want to all want to make things short and fast. That’s our generation. And we change the usage of words to suit us.