{"id":3363,"date":"2012-06-13T06:38:51","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=3363"},"modified":"2012-06-13T06:38:51","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T13:38:51","slug":"moderately-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2012\/06\/13\/moderately-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"Moderately Awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.<\/strong>*<\/p>\n

Awe,<\/em> now there’s a word that’s suffered a devolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe universe is 10 billion light years across.\u201d \u201cAwesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I’ll see you at 5:00.\u201d \u201cAwesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can they both be awesome?<\/p>\n

Seems it takes a lot to form a new word but very little to dilute an old one.<\/p>\n

(\u201cAwesome thought, Hyatt.\u201d \u201cThanks.\u201d)<\/p>\n

I checked out the etymology of the word and find that awful<\/em> came first. That’s \u201cfull of awe,\u201d meaning “knee-shaking fear.” But when that word went mostly to the dark side, awesome<\/em> came along to lift us up. Used correctly, it means “dread mixed with veneration,” particularly in reference to the Supreme Being. Still pretty knee shaking.<\/p>\n

It’s a result of colloquial weakening that’s brought it down to merely \u201cimpressive,\u201d or \u201cvery good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or even \u201cpretty good,\u201d like . . .\u00a0\u201cHey, I got a B on my test.\u201d\u00a0\u201cAwesome.\u201d**<\/p>\n

Okay, but then what word do we use when we consider the following?<\/p>\n

If the distance between the earth and the sun (92 million miles) was the thickness of a sheet of paper,
\nthen the distance between the earth and the nearest star would be a stack of paper 70 feet high.
\nThe distance across the galaxy would be a stack of paper 310 miles high.<\/em><\/p>\n

Or this: <\/em><\/p>\n

Our galaxy (the Milky Way) has 500 thousand million stars.
\nSome\u00a0galaxies\u00a0are 100 times larger than ours.
\nThere are an estimated 200 billion galaxies!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What do you say to that?<\/p>\n

“Uhhhhhh . . . ”<\/p>\n

(“Uhhhsome?”)<\/p>\n

The Ecclesiastes writer, who had a clearer view of the night sky, said, \u201cYour little thoughts and plans are just that, stand in awe of God.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

It helps to put things in perspective.<\/p>\n

See you next time.<\/p>\n

Awesome?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

* \u00a0Ecclesiastes 5:7
\n**Actually, for me in high school, getting a B really was pretty awesome.
\nNext: Imagination: Peep Holes in the Walls of our Minds.<\/em> Coming Sunday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like our universe, our language continues to expand and devolve. For the former, all we can do is look and wonder; for the latter, well, we can only wonder about that too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3363"}],"version-history":[{"count":56,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3528,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions\/3528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}