awful is FULL of awe, however awesome only has SOME awe. (Based on Phonetics not spelling, thanks) Why I ask! why?!
2006-11-21 09:35:01 · 6 answers · asked by Walabie 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Words mean what people want them to mean. Bogus means fake, but when I was a teen, it also meant cool. No word has inherent value other than the value the listener assigns to them. That's what makes communicating so difficult. Not everything someone hears is what the speaker intends to say. Awful and awesome used to mean the same thing.
2006-11-21 09:46:52 · answer #1 · answered by Big Blair 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Bobby has it. Same with terrible. You can have terrible power which is not bad power, but awesome (in the actual sense) power. Or, you can mean it to be literally, bad power (but that's not really good grammar).
Take a course on critical reading of poetry... you learn really fast how words can be interpreted by people.
2006-11-21 21:17:50 · answer #2 · answered by Madame Gato 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
actually, the orginal meaning of "awesome" was to be "aw stricken" or "in fear", it wasnt intended to be like "cool".
2006-11-21 17:42:52 · answer #3 · answered by Bobby B 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its the beauty of the English language...its so irregular!!
2006-11-21 17:43:50 · answer #4 · answered by Rukiya 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Indeed why? Thats the english language for you.
2006-11-21 17:43:30 · answer #5 · answered by antiekmama 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
awful is actually slang, i'm not sure for what, but i see where your coming from.
2006-11-21 18:02:35 · answer #6 · answered by ? 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋