And for my Doctor Who fans and UK folks, “Brilliant” is an awesome alternative (literally!) #ECS311
It’s official: “awesome” is dead.
It’s our fault. We killed it. We took a word that literally meant “awe-inspiring” – a word used to describe Mount Everest and the Andromeda Galaxy and God Almighty – and applied it to a YouTube video of a kid failing to swing a stick.
Don’t get me wrong. Words change meaning over time, I’m all for evolution. But “awesome,” in its current state, has the impact of limp ramen on Kevlar. When someone tells me something is awesome, my brain files that something into the category of things that exist, because that’s all they’ve told me about it.
I know – I’m as guilty as anyone else. But as I carried the disease, so shall I deliver the cure.
Let’s give “awesome” a break. As writers (or merely as excellent dudes and ladies) let’s do our duty to the English language. The next…
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Amie Reid 
This post was (dare I say?) Brilliant!
The power of language has such an impact on us and little do we know it. It totally changes the way we see situations either positively or negatively. I am going to have think twice before I speak from now on, but I am shamed to say that “Awesome” is a very common comment from me(again sometimes positively and sometimes negatively) – maybe I can get a handle on other 28 words to say instead!
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I love this! I am guilty of using “awesome” for anything that is slightly above average to something that is out of this world. This made me think about the impact you can have on your students if you exchange the word “awesome” that is overused and dull to “brilliant”, which is different and exciting for the young minds of middle years students.
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This is AWESOME! Reading back through past conversations I have had it seems like this is the only word I use sometimes. I think I even used this when I was providing feedback in the Problem Solving Experience. This is fantastic.
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