Good or Bad?

Exercise: Vocab expansion.

Every language has an excess of words for either very good or very bad and English is no exception! How many can you think of in your own language?

Somebody once called man the "eternal evaluator" and he was right. We always seem to be in need of new ways to make those judgements! 

1. Here's a list of words: See if you can sort them out into two columns. Some are easy... others less so!

Great

Terrible

Lamentable

Neat

Smashing

Awful

Ace

Groovy

Abominable

Swell

Terrific

Marvelous

Awesome
Stupendous

Dreadful

Excellent

Sickening

Rad
Brilliant

Lousey

Deplorable
Incredible
Hunky dory
Sound

Rotten
Atrocious

Fantastic

Splendid

Crap

Superb

Fab

Wicked

Horrible

Cool
Naughty

2. Which of the two has more common synonyms?

3. Many words for "good" are also associated with specific decades or generations. Can you guess which words were current during the 1960's? Careful... If you used them today you would sound old fashioned! We can often tell a person's generation by their vocab. Which words are of your generation?

4. One word could mean either good or bad, depending on your generation. Which one is it?

5. This is only a selection! Can you think of anymore examples?

... of course we don't necessarily need all of these synonyms. In his famous novel, 1984, George Orwell envisioned a totalitarian world in which the population's cultural awareness and verbal range had been drastically reduced through the destruction of words and the shortening of the dictionary. Why do we need "great" and "fantastic", when "plus good" and "double plus good" will do?

Any list wouldn't be complete without the longest word of them all, and this is how it goes...

Answers:

1. Good: Great, Neat, Smashing, Ace, Groovy, Swell, Terrific, Marvelous, Awesome, Stupendous, Excellent, Rad, Brilliant, Incredible, Hunky dory, Sound, Fantastic, Splendid, Superb, Fab, Wicked, Cool.

Bad: Terrible, Lamentable, Awful, Abominable, Dreadful, Sickening, Lousey, Deplorable, Rotten, Atrocious, Crap, Wicked, Horrible, Naughty.

3. 1960's: Fab, Groovy.

4. If you grew up in the '90's then wicked means really good. Of course whatever parents think is bad, teenagers will think is good!