Until recently, if a wordsmith or conversationalist wanted to convey an emotion in an over-the-top way--but felt awesomely tongue-tied (or awesomely tired of "awesome")--he or she had to rely on boring search engines or old-school dictionaries. Then, along comes this delightful, spankingly amusing little book from Arthur Plotnik, author of The Elements of Editing.
We have used our pleasant superlatives to death, says Plotnik. Fabulous is often said sarcastically. Unbelievable is trite. Incredible is boring. Spectacular is no longer all that great--and neither is great. Conversation is peppered with these words so much that they've lost their ability to capture the intended meaning and, to compensate, we feel a need to add on intensifiers: So great. Too cool. Totally awesome. Or we drag out a word until it's just aMAYYYYzing.
Using 15 generally generic ways of conveying basic goodness, as well as some appendices to help further a newfound lingual insouciance, Plotnik presents hundreds of words and phrases that will make any conversation a sojourn through paradise. This will make your words grovel-at-the-feet divine. Your listeners will find you pawky. They'll hang onto your every word with bum-clenching tenseness. You'll suddenly feel like you're in Celebrity City. And if you're a linguist, conversationalist, writer or just like quirky etymology books, this book is DAP. --Terri Schlichenmeyer, writer at The Bookworm Sez