To the Masses: about "Epic"

My post is going to be short since I'm at home this weekend and blogging isn't high on my list of priorities compared to watching UF cream Georgia, seeing Melanie do really well in her marching competition (well, seeing the band do well anyway; it's hard to tell who's who among 300 kids in the same outfit), and talking to all my family. Plus, tonight's daylight savings, so I'm losing an hour doing this. It's an epic night.

I try to be open to new uses of good words, but I admit it's a struggle. "Epic" was a good word. Lord of the Rings, Virgil's Aeneid, Paradise Lost--great epics. And when you know what an epic is, then it makes sense to apply the word to, say, a literary work or a movie, or even an effort. "He's writing an epic poem." Cool. I'm okay with the adjectival use.

Then you figure, well, if "epic" describes an effort that will be remembered for all history and takes place across generations, that you should use it to mean a situation that you think is cool. "That was an epic pass from Tebow." Mm, I resist.

Here's why I resist: I'm not against language changing for new meanings, but I do resist changes that are a crutch for those with small vocabularies. Using "epic" trivially conflates its meaning and forces it to be just another way to say "good." I don't have a voluminous vocabulary, but I don't think it's hard to be more specific than "good." And if you have to make up words so it doesn't look like you have dull-witted, repetitive ideas, then I think you're wasting you're time because people will eventually notice. Ooh! Epic burn.

But it gets worse. Give the masses an inch, and each person pulls for a mile. (That makes for a lot of miles, distributed over everyone.) "Epic" is now acquiring a colloquial adverbial sense. Yes, I hate to break it to you, but I have heard, in real conversation, "That was epic cool." At least the masses discard all semblance of grammaticality and skip "epically cool."

"Epic" in this sense means "really." "He's really ticked off" becomes, "He was, like, epic pissed off." So, for anyone who likes to use the words "good" and "really," but not really, then "epic" is the word for you. It's epic good, dawg. Can't we all talk like this instead of like this?