Even if you have an up-to-date thesaurus, it’s out of date. That’s especially true with the word of the day to designate something that is above average and bordering on exceptional.
Many of such words are so dated than when one hears another person using such a term one gets the feeling the other is locked in a time warp.
I refer, of course, to the word cool and its many synonyms.
If we broaden the limits of cool enough to allow in such things as
heavy
wild
evil
bad
gnarly
far out
sexy
rad
and whatever TODAY’s word is
then what is your all-time favorite word of this genre?
Your least favorite?
And which one strikes you as the most dated?
Righteous
Serious
Exceptional
Which one had the shortest shelf life?
By my reckoning, cool has meant the same thing for at least 50 years, and is in decent standing today.
I’ve always liked awesome. I think this one, along with “cool”, is here to stay.
My favorite word that has come and gone would have to be rad.
Far out seems to be quite dated to me.
Gnarly grates my nerves for some reason and is thus my least favorite. I’ve never used this word except to acknowledge that I don’t like it. Wicked ranks second.
Well, since we’re stretching the definition, anyway, my current Least Favorite is “da’ bomb”. Hate it! Especially since I generally hear it from decidedly UN-funky white boys (yes, that describes me, as well).
I still use “cool” fairly often. Occasionally, I’ll use “far out”, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. I’ll also use “peachy”, and even “nifty”, in a sarcastic or wise-ass mood.
And, one that is deservedly dead and, apparently, pretty much forgotten; dynamite.
You have nailed it with “da’ bomb” as far as I’m concerned. There’s a Comcast commercial where this young couple are going on about the brand new baby and the dad is wanting to buy the kid a trike. And when he says “Yeah, but dis is da bomb” I feel tempted to smash our wonderful TV set.
My favorite is “spiffy”. I just like how it sounds. It’s so archaic that it’s no longer out-dated. For that reason, I also like “the bee’s knees” and “the cat’s pajamas”. Why, yes, I am slowly amassing a collection of 1930s and 1940s furniture, why do you ask?
What annoys me:
Anything that makes it into a commercial, a sitcom, or similar popular drek.
The first time I ever heard “boss” used as an adjective it was from the mouth of a hapless, sad-sack Californian cousin of mine. I thought it was pretty stupid then, and I’m glad it never crept into the popular lexicon for any appreciable length of time.
To me, “cool” is not a word that I’d use in the Arthur Fonzerelli sense, although I still use it to denote “Not a cause for concern.”
I am obviously damaged frfom growing up a west coast baby.
<OT> Have had a running theory/gag for awhile about a pidgin language born out of, say, Santa Cruz, called fuckmandude, which is comprised entirely of various inflected permutations of “fuck”, “man”, and “dude”, with the occassional “like” or “totally” as punctuation.
I occasionally say groovy in a somewhat sincere way (when not talking about music). Although I usually do so with Ash [Bruce Campbell]'s use of the word in Army of Darkness in mind.
I think “peachy keen” stinks. It’s an old phrase, but people sometimes use it in a quasi-ironic way these days. Ick.
ARggggh, I hated groovy even when I was just a tot of 8 or so (and when it was at it’s height of popularity).
I still like cool. And am glad to see I’m not the only one who uses old roaring 20s expressions like “bee’s knee’s and the cat’s pyjama’s”
I also like “knocks spots off” which is also an old 20s expression that means “is WAY better than”.
The one word I remember from my teen years (70s) that wasn’t mentioned in the OP was the word “decent”. It was used to denote something really really cool. It was popular both in my home state of Alaska, and Anchorage’s “sister city” of Seattle (which I understand is now no longer “cool”?).
Also “tuff” which usually was used to describe a great car, stereo system, outfit or the like and I heard most as a teen in CA.
Count me in as one who hates “gnarly” and “da bomb”.
S.E. Hinton actually explained the precise meaning of “tuff” in one of her books (I think it was “Rumble Fish,” or perhaps “The Outsiders.”) I think “phat” has take over the meaning that “tuff” used to have, as far as I can tell.
