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cycloid

why is awesome good but awful bad

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On a side note:

Forget is an antonym for Remember;
Forgive is an antonym for ??? (can't think of any);
Get is an antonym for Give (well, kind of);

Is Forget an antonym for Forgive? :)

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baronofhell said:

wtf are you talking about?


Cmon, use some brains

Awe = great
Some = some.
Full = full of.

AWE "SOME" = some of great
AWE "FULL" = full of great

but in reality, it's the REVERSE

perhaps strong bad is right, too much of a good thing is a great thing (Awesome) and too much of a great thing is just dumb (Awful)

what, i need sleep

DarkFoxSoldier20 said:

Sounds like a thread going straight to hell.


oh noes, a newbie is doing backseat moddernation!

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(slaps hand on forehead) Oh I get it!!! Can't think of any acronyms right now, it's 8 am after a night of deathmatch. Thanks for the enlightment gargoyl!!

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DarkFoxSoldier20 said:

You wish.

No, he's right, so you get a brief spell in Losers.

BTW, terrible and terrific is one that has always puzzled me (slightly), especially when compared with horrible and horrific.

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Why is awesome good because it was a new open source editor, but it's also awful bad because it was abandoned.

Anyway, awe may cause both sublime admiration or terror (or even horror.) Something that's awesome is awe-like or brings awe; something awful is so full of awe that it's damaging, in the same way parodies make excesive use of certain qualities, kind of spoiling them or making them extreme or obvious.

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bush and his 'shock and awe' tactics seem to be my favourate example for this second. Awe is also often associated with Gods manifesting themselves before the impressed (but shitting themselves) protagonists of legend. Bush, god, same thing. God is a bit more humble though.

Most really awe inspiring stuff (like an atom bomb going off in uncle Asok's back garden) also inspires fear on some level or another.

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I was about to write pretty much what fodders said, except a lot more brief.

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A rather contradictory article given Shakespeare uses it in "a surprisingly modern way."

I find the relation between lame or horrid and majestic pretty natural being that the two (the grotesque and the sublime) are the two main categories of aesthetics.

Literature has always been much more liberal than dictionaries in accepting slang and deviant meanings. The whole purpose of the lexicon is to sustain meanings through time, whereas literature and usage play with words all the time.

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The word moot used to mean debate(able)... but now it means not worth mentioning in this topic? That's what I don't get.

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cycloid said:

surely aweFULL should be better than aweSOME... discuss:


That's because whatever in excess (sex, or even DOOM) is bad, causing pain, fatigue, and other feelings that I don't know how to spell in English, while having just some of that, and leaving you willing for more is allways pleasant, and never bore you.

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Janderson said:
The word moot used to mean debate(able)... but now it means not worth mentioning in this topic? That's what I don't get.

It's because it's so disputable that a discussion or argument over it will never end, so it's seen as pointless.

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As an English language purist and excellent typist, I agree with the sentiments of the thread. Sadly they will never be realised.

However, you can use the formative definition of the word to confuse retards in everyday speech, so there is a birght side.

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pritch said:

As an English language purist and excellent typist, I agree with the sentiments of the thread. Sadly they will never be realised.

However, you can use the formative definition of the word to confuse retards in everyday speech, so there is a birght side.


birght?:)

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I like the small changes in words, I just don't get them.

Btw, should water rhyme with matter or mortar? Is it dialectal or is that how water used to be pronounced?

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Janderson said:

The word moot used to mean debate(able)... but now it means not worth mentioning in this topic? That's what I don't get.


A fag was once a bundle of sticks. Gay was once happy. Bastard meant illegitimate child.. oh wait

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Janderson said:

Btw, should water rhyme with matter or mortar? Is it dialectal or is that how water used to be pronounced?

WAH-ter
MĂ-ter
MOR-ter

probably dialect

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ravage said:

A fag was once a bundle of sticks. Gay was once happy. Bastard meant illegitimate child.. oh wait

Oh yea, well my example is of a word reversing it's meaning, so there >:P

Oh and in the 1800s 'fag' was also the term used for the new kids who were more or less enslaved by the seniors in English boarding schools.

[I saw a group of fags]Noun
[He used to fag for us]Verb

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It didn't really get reversed; it just got a negative or derisive connotation. And awful probably got the negative value from being used in combination with negative adjectives, such as "awfully stupid."

In other cases what is first sarcasm can become common usage; we could well start saying "awesome" every time something dunb comes up, in ridicule, and thus drive the word "down."

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