The Death Of Cool

Once the year 2000 rolled around, I remember a high school classmate making a big deal about training herself not to use the word "cool" when describing something great. (Victoria and Mandy, remember Kelly Hurley? yeah it was her). She thought 2000 was the era in which to retire "cool".

I've noticed recently how much this word really has started to expire in usefulness. I'm usually pretty particular about the words I choose to speak, and whenever I use "cool" I feel a little stupid, ha. "Cool!" Gosh I remember trying not to give in to using this terminology. 5th grade. Somehow I thought people using it were shallow because they were only copying everyone else saying it. So intentionally, I avoided "cool" and went for "neat!" or the extra-stellar "awwwgh!!!" when something was REALLY neat, ha.

How long has it been around? Well,

Etymology:
The usage of cool as a general positive epithet or interjection has been part and parcel of English slang since World War II, and has even been borrowed into other languages, such as French and German. Originally this sense is a development from a Black English usage meaning 'excellent, superlative,' first recorded in written English in the early 1930s.

Almost 80 years! Kind of amazing isn't it? However I think we attribute a more hip connotation to it's meaning to like the 1950s or something. Still that was 60 years ago. I'm impressed as to how long it's lasted. Surely it has outlived "swell" and "groovey" as socially acceptable terminology.

However! I've noticed that just in the past couple years "awesome" seems to have replaced "cool". It's true. "Awesome" seems more appropriate for something one would deem really impressive. Of course, you then have to wonder about how people choose the words they say. Some just say things because of habit, which doesn't mean the topic inducing their reply actually is all that awesome. Speech patterns would probably be more interesting if people thought about their word choices a bit more, including myself.


On a kind of different topic, but possibly related: my boss was telling me about this cartoon he watches with his kids every morning. It's called Martha Speaks, about a dog named Martha who's able to speak because she eats alphabet soup. Some of the letters go to her tummy, and some go to her brain. Ha! What a concept!