[techtalk] Fwd: Re: [announce] Women for KDE

[jenn at simegen.com]

Karl-Heinz Zimmer wrote:

> I obviously misinterpreted that "awesome"!  In my simple mind "awesome"
> seemed to be a negative word - like terrible - but now that I come to
> think about it there is a far remembering of it also meaning "superbe".

'awe' (noun): the emotion one gets when one walks into a cathedral of
one's own faith (or of another faith, if one respects other faiths). The
wonder/fear combination sort of emotion.. or at least wonder/respect.

'awesome': adjective, describing something which produces awe. Casual
use makes it a synonym for 'superb', 'wonderful', 'extremely good'.

'awful': adjective, originally a synonym of awesome, developed into a
descriptor of the 'fear' component so beloved of 'fire-and-brimstone'
sorts of preachers. It next developed into a synonym for 'causing
fear/terror', and from there into the state where 'oh, that's awful'
equates to 'oh, that's not at all nice'.



Jenn V.
-- 
       "Do you ever wonder if there's a whole section of geek culture 
		you miss out on by being a geek?" - Dancer.

jenn at simegen.com        Jenn Vesperman       
http://www.simegen.com/~jenn/