Meaningless Is Awesome

 

“How was the flight?” I call a friend after she lands in Bangalore.
“Cool.”

“How’s the weather?”
“Awesome.”

“And your office?”
“Sexy.” 

I realize that cool is a sexy word with awesome usage. And the word sexy is so awesome that it can be used in cool ways.

The funny thing about sexy is that it can be innocent, deliberate, offensive and complimentary depending on the subject and the context. Type the word on Google and it leads to images and videos which can be a nightmare of any parent with kids. Unlike cool and awesome, sexy is an age appropriate word. Kindergarten kids describing their candy as sexy can make any parent squirm. 

Then there are some who believe that a sexy woman is one who enjoys having sex. It is all about the subject and the context. National Commission for Women chairperson said that girls should not get offended if roadside Romeos make passes at them by calling them sexy. Addressing a packed audience of women she said, “If boys tease you by calling you sexy, you should not get provoked. Instead you should take it as a compliment. Sexy means excitingly beautiful and charming.” Huh?
Any roadside stranger calling a woman sexy deserves one tight slap.

The thing with some words is that once they become viral, we recognize them more in colloquial speech than in literal terms. Cool they say was first used as slang in forties to label a new style of jazz which was different than ‘hot jazz’. Today it can be used to describe Modi’s speech, Priyanka's tattoo, Sachin’s sixer or a Dairy Milk chocolate. A thorough stomach cleanse in the toilet can be cool too - even sexy or awesome. There is a certain positivity attached with these three words. I mean, you cannot call Modi's arm pits or Mulayam's nose sexy. Or cool.Can you?


Since I use the word awesome often, I was amused to read that British poet John Tottenham hates the word awesome so much that he started a campaign to stamp out the word. He created bumper stickers and T-shirts for his movement to ban this ‘superlative meaningless’ word.
A comment on his post was very interesting. “Why does anything we say have to have a meaning? Meaningless is awesome. Somebody should tell this Brit to lighten up and bloody p**s off.” Article

Apologies for wasting your time on a topic as obtuse as this. But after enough soap and soup, I was in mood for some idle chat. Remember ‘meaningless’ is awesome. Just like an old Govinda movie.
I bet no one can look as cool as he did in yellow pants singing that awesome song – Meri pant bhi sexy, Meri shirt bhi sexy hai.


Picture Courtesy: gobollywood.com