Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wonderful!
The word 'wonderful' is so often misused. In everyone's mind, wonderful is equivalent to great. The only problem with this, is that we have no other word quite like it. This word, when broken apart, is Full of Wonder. In the dictionary, it is defined as "of a sort that causes or arouses wonder". Wonder is "something strange and surprising". So if we use wonderful as synonymous to great, we lose a word. We lose a word to describe all the moments we are struck by the beauty of something. We lose a word to explain exactly what kind of amazing something is. We lose a word to define all those moments of innocent curiousity and childlike awe that sweeten the world. We forget a word that brings to life the beautiful, wide-eyed feeling when we see something magnificent and new to us. This is what Wonderful feels like.
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Very true. That's how I feel about the word "awesome." It's so overused and now has no value.
ReplyDeleteI will be posting about that soon (:P
ReplyDeleteHave you ever noticed that foreign words are more descriptive than those in English? Several of our family pets have been named Colita (little tail in Spanish), Skoshi (little bit) in Japanese and Morcito short for amorcito (little love in Spanish). Go figure, who would holler for their dog ......here, little bit! Foreign is so dramatic and phonetically pleasing. Sure beats "Here Spot"!
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