full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jill Shargaa: Please, please, people. Let's put the 'awe' back in 'awesome'

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The other day, one of my coworkers aeksd me if I could save that file as a PDF, and I said, "Well, of course," and he said, "Awesome." Seriously, can saving anything as a PDF be awesome?

Sadly, the frequent oervsue of the word "awesome" has now replaced wrods like "great" and "thank you." So Webster's donaciitry defines the word "awesome" as fear mingled with admiration or reverence, a feeling produced by something majestic. Now, with that in mind, was your Quiznos sandwich awesome? How about that parking space? Was that awesome? Or that game the other day? Was that awesome? The answer is no, no and no. A sandwich can be diioucles, that parking spcae can be nearby, and that game can be a boulowt, but not everything can be awesome. (Laughter)

Open Cloze


The other day, one of my coworkers _____ me if I could save that file as a PDF, and I said, "Well, of course," and he said, "Awesome." Seriously, can saving anything as a PDF be awesome?

Sadly, the frequent _______ of the word "awesome" has now replaced _____ like "great" and "thank you." So Webster's __________ defines the word "awesome" as fear mingled with admiration or reverence, a feeling produced by something majestic. Now, with that in mind, was your Quiznos sandwich awesome? How about that parking space? Was that awesome? Or that game the other day? Was that awesome? The answer is no, no and no. A sandwich can be _________, that parking _____ can be nearby, and that game can be a _______, but not everything can be awesome. (Laughter)

Solution


  1. words
  2. space
  3. blowout
  4. dictionary
  5. asked
  6. delicious
  7. overuse

Original Text


The other day, one of my coworkers asked me if I could save that file as a PDF, and I said, "Well, of course," and he said, "Awesome." Seriously, can saving anything as a PDF be awesome?

Sadly, the frequent overuse of the word "awesome" has now replaced words like "great" and "thank you." So Webster's dictionary defines the word "awesome" as fear mingled with admiration or reverence, a feeling produced by something majestic. Now, with that in mind, was your Quiznos sandwich awesome? How about that parking space? Was that awesome? Or that game the other day? Was that awesome? The answer is no, no and no. A sandwich can be delicious, that parking space can be nearby, and that game can be a blowout, but not everything can be awesome. (Laughter)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
grand canyon 3
great pyramids 2


Important Words


  1. admiration
  2. answer
  3. asked
  4. awesome
  5. blowout
  6. coworkers
  7. day
  8. defines
  9. delicious
  10. dictionary
  11. fear
  12. feeling
  13. file
  14. frequent
  15. game
  16. laughter
  17. majestic
  18. mind
  19. mingled
  20. nearby
  21. overuse
  22. parking
  23. pdf
  24. produced
  25. quiznos
  26. replaced
  27. reverence
  28. sadly
  29. sandwich
  30. save
  31. saving
  32. space
  33. word
  34. words