A sing-song play on words? No, it’s the more serious matter of us being close to having exhausted all the logical superlatives in describing an object, happening, or situation.
The trend never had an identifiable beginning. It just sort of happened. Still, you might remember when such words as “nice,” “wonderful,” and “terrific” did most of the heavy lifting.
Then along came “super” and “shocking” plus such compound descriptors as “jaw-dropping” that reference the human body, and “earth shaking” and “out of this world” that suggest far larger dimensions.
More recently, however, we began reaching even higher to include such words as “awe” and “awesome” along with the juiced up variations “awe-inspiring” and “awe-struck.”
Still not satisfied and leaving logic even farther behind, we introduced “incredible” and “unbelievable.” Even those dealing with financial investments who, of all people, should be speaking responsibly, insist on using such terms as “explosive,” “mind blowing,” and “skyrocketing” in describing the performance of a certain stock.
And then there is “oh wow” that people tend to repeat with increasing emphasis — like oh wow, oh wow, oh WOW!”
Along the way, we have blindly assumed there were still more powerful descriptive words left. Now, however, we appear to have reached a point close to the end.
At the same time, we have broadened the items for which “incredible” and “unbelievable” are being used to describe them — everything from a new and improved toothpaste to images from outer space and vitamins to give you the strength to do twenty push ups, to a drug for losing thirty pounds of tummy fat to an entertainer able to fill more than 60,000 stadium seats for a single show.
Also, we are increasingly using two words rather than only one. It’s not unusual to witness something described as “super incredible” or “amazingly unbelievable.” That oversteps the line because one word tends to cancel out the effect of the other word. That alone could possibly be the brain’s way of telling us that enough is enough.
At this point, we have to wonder how we could have ever gotten ourselves in such a fix. After all, the English language has always been highly regarded for its ability to handily accommodate any and all tasks asked of it. It’s not the words, however, that are at fault. It’s us.
We humans have always felt the need to impress one another even if we must exaggerate. That feeds into our competitive nature which, in turn, causes us to resort to even more sweeping descriptions.
We find ourselves competing for and boasting about ever larger quantities of anything and everything. That includes competing with each other both in what we do and what we say about what we’ve done.
It’s easy to conclude that the urge to describe anything as “unbelievable” and “incredible” comes not from our desire to accurately describe, but rather to impress. Now you can begin to understand why the anticipation we have as the result of such descriptions often falls disappointingly short of reality.
And so this final thought: It’s always pleasant to be around those whose voices and behaviors speak of honesty in their describing and reflecting.
Their believability will always stand well above the exaggerated and borderline fictitious.
