Saturday, January 21, 2006

Awesome and awesome (#44, Topic L)

A couple of weeks ago, in another question-and-answer column, a young mother wrote in and talked glowingly of how well her in-laws have been treating her. She then said: "And their relationship with their grandchildren is awesome." At that moment, I stopped and asked myself: How come, when their relationship with the mother is so good, their relationship with the grandchildren is so miserable." At that point, I actually had committed two faux pas, but I did not realize it until later -- one, being presumptuous, that letter writers to columnists are invariably in need of help; two, jumping to conclusions. When I read on, the writer continued to describe how lovingly her in-laws treated their grandchildren. Analyzing my missteps, I realized that I was tripped by the word awesome -- I instinctively equate it to awful and fearsome. Then I remembered that our son-in-law and our grandson use the word awesome, in a positive way, a lot -- still, if my mind is a Google search machine, equating awesome to goodness will not be at the top of the search. Yesterday, we received a thank-you note from our grandson. Sure enough, the word appears in the very first sentence: "Thank you for the awesome fleece robe [and other goodies he received as Christmas gifts]." So, we learn; and grandsons are as good a source as any. It is indeed awesome.
Posted at 11:17 am, Saturday, January 21, 2006

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