Saturday, March 06, 2010

Amazing? Not

I propose a ban on the use of the word 'amazing'. Just today I heard the following:

The figure skater's performance was amazing.
The Olympics were amazing.
Crosby's goal was amazing.
Avatar was amazing.
The book was amazing.
The video was simply amazing.
The blueberry cheesecake was amazing.
Human reaction time is amazing.
The hummingbird was amazing.
The [sensitivity of a] mousetrap was amazing.
A girl said her boyfriend was amazing, but didn't clarify.
The same girl said her girlfriend was amazing to her.

I'm ready to scream the next time I hear the word. The problem is, of course, that the word is used so widely that it has lost all meaning. To amaze is to overwhelm with surprise or sudden wonder. But people now use it to mean excellent, interesting, better than expected, higher/lower/cooler/warmer/drier/wetter, and very tasty. Human reaction time might be incredibly fast, but it is what it is, so one should not be amazed. Same with the hummingbird, but not that it can hover. If it tried to hover and fell...that should be amazing.

I agree that a hockey player like Ovetchkin can score an amazing goal, like when I see him put the puck through an opponent's legs, twirl around the guy, pick it up again, slip it into his skates to keep it away from the goalie's poke check, then kick it up to his stick, and pop it over the goalie's shoulder with a one-handed shot. Something that makes me blurt out, "Oh!" or "Wow" should rank as amazing.

But not everything else.

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