He's right. Awesome uses to literally mean awe-some. To be filled with awe. Today it's just used as "cool". It used to apply to spectacular, once in a lifetime things, but the language evolved and now it applies to toast that looks funny.
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· 6 years ago
Back in my day, it was used to describe massive monuments to the gods. I guess I'm just too old.
It is a very long list of words that have changed meaning or come into existence even in a short span. That being said in Tyson’s “day” awesome and radical- two words with non mundane use traditionally- had both been in use to describe non world changing events for some time. Sub cultures like the vebetabke “surfer dude” and the “hippies” had been using words like these (including these) since at least the 1960’s, and such words were used in advertising under the more “modern” use since at least the 40’s and 50’s.
Words change meaning. Simple examples like “that’s un believable” or looking at the claims of products or individuals going back centuries should tell you that exaggeration is not a recent phenomenon.
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