English Communication: Wicked Awesome Words

The other day, Roberta (from Italy) commented, “Why does English have so many words for everything? ‘Smart,’ ‘Clever,’ ‘Brainy,’ ‘Intelligent’– in Italian we just say ‘Intelligente!’

It’s true, English has a lot of words!  You may think too many.  Most experts count at least 250,000. (Other experts say half a million, a million or even a billion. It is all in how you count them!)

No matter how you count the number of words in English, this is significantly higher than most other languages–likely more than any other language.

Why so many words?  The answer is in the language’s long and complicated history of invasion and conquest.  Of different cultures (and their languages) colliding, borrowing, and merging into one giant, beautiful mess.  And the answer is in the rapidly expanding vocabularies of all the sciences, technology, and even slang and colloquial phrases in popular culture.

Don’t worry, though– you don’t need to memorize anywhere close to all quarter-million (or more!) words to be a proficient English speaker.  And when it comes to words with synonyms (words with the same or similar meanings, like ‘smart’ and ‘intelligent’), you can often communicate what you need to say if you know just one of the words.

On the other hand, there are a few types of words in English that have hundreds of synonyms–especially adjectives like ‘good’ and ‘bad.  For example, ‘really good’ can be expressed with words like excellent, wonderful, amazing, incredible, and many more.  With words like these that are so, so common, you probably want to be able to use a few and recognize many.

To top it all off, these words also have slang counterparts– words that are fun to know and helpful to recognize, but should not be used in formal speech or writing.

Here are some of our favorite slang or informal words which mean “really good:”

• Awesome – Very common; can be used by anyone in informal situations
• Bodacious – Less common; very informal, has a ‘surfer’ or ‘stoner’ feel; used esp. by young men
• The best thing since sliced bread – Less common; cute and cheesy; can be used by anyone
• The bomb – Less common; very informal
• Dank – Less common (though more so recently); very informal; used esp. by men in early 20s or younger
• Fantastic – Very common; can be used by anyone in most situations
• Far out – Less common; very informal, has a ‘surfer’ or ‘stoner’ feel; used mostly by young people
• Off the hook – Less common; very informal; used mostly by young people
• Righteous – Less common; very informal; used mostly by young people
• Sick – Less common; very informal; used mostly by young people
• Tight – Less common; very informal; used mostly by young people
• Unreal – Less common;  informal; can be used by anyone, but used mostly by young people
• Wicked – Less common; very informal; used mostly by young people

Pay attention to the variety of ‘really good’ synonyms you encounter in your daily life.  You never know what bodacious words you’ll come across.

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Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercises.

Contributing editor: Amber McKinney