Awesome

I am beginning to hate the word 'awesome', with a passion!

How can I be so animated by a word?  Well I'm not, but I resent its use, and try as I can, I can't think of a single instance where there would not be a better choice.

It has no descriptive power and seems to be used as a place holder for a superlative adjective which the speaker can't be bothered to think of. It's this capacity for the word to dumb-down the articulation of the speaker which I resent.  Life and language are rich, powerful and colourful.  The word 'awesome' is mid-grey, colourless, non-descriptive and above all thoughtless.  It could be anything: 'blah' would do just as well.  "Oh your shoes are just blah" says precisely as much as "Oh your shoes are just awesome".  In either case it gives an impression of being disingenuous; of having to say something positive but having nothing positive to say, except perhaps that we have seen 91210.

Just imagine what we could say in its place to describe 'awesome' shoes.  We could say something like: creative; thought provoking; imaginative; beautiful; elaborate; colourful; stylish; unique; fashionable; stunning; irreverent; sexy; outrageous; delightfully expensive;... you get the idea I'm sure.  And if it's not shoes, the possibilities increase considerably.

But what if you want to describe the shoes being so singularly unique that they inspire genuine awe? Then they are truly 'awe inspiring'.

I can see no point in the word 'awesome' at all.