All Things Awesome

http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/my-awesome-lunch/

Thanks to a friend sending a recent post to me, I’ve taken to reading and enjoying Stephan Pastis’ blog. The link above is a recent post that made me howl not only because it’s funny but also because I have often thought the same thing myself.

I understand that awesome is used far too frequently because people don’t know understand the real meaning. In this particular case, I wonder if the person in question used ‘awesome’ to show her amazement that a service person actually did their job. Or was it being used sarcastically? Or is it just back to the overused/misunderstood definition of awesome?

The word awesome in general makes me laugh. It makes me think of a character in a television show I enjoy watching who is often called ‘Captain Awesome.” Most of the time when I use awesome, I use it to mean the absolute opposite.

What is awe inspiring though, is how Pastis writes these things on his blog and gets people to start thinking about how we communicate and how we use language.