Once upon a time I enjoyed flipping through a dictionary to discover new words and their meanings, but when I was told writing was not a real job, I stopped. After all, I trusted those people because they were in more authoritative jobs and made more money than I made. But putting our life choices in someone else’s hands robs us of the life we are meant to have and no one pays a higher price than we do.

Back on my own path now, I’m diving back into word exploration with a dictionary and a thesaurus because I realized my language had become lazy and nondescript, which is not a good thing for a writer or even for someone who wants other people to better understand what they are saying or writing.

Listening to the non-defining and/or approval words coming out of my mouth or sliding off my fingers onto the keyboard, I am aghast realizing how much I’ve succumbed. And knowing change happens only with conscious effort, one of the first words I want to eliminate from my vocabulary is “awesome.” Making the task easier is discovering a long list of alternative words to choose:

Formal Adjectives:

Alarming

Amazing

Awe-Inspiring

Beautiful

Breathtaking

Daunting

Dreadful

Exalted

Fearsome

Formidable

Frantic

Frightening

Grand

Horrifying

Imposing

Impressive

Intimidating

Magnificent

Majestic

Moving

Overwhelming

Striking

Stunning

Stupefying

Stupendous

Terrifying

Unforgettable

Wonderful

Non-formal adjectives:

Clean outta sight

Far-out

Mind-blowing

 

From the Fitzhenry & Whiteside Canadian Thesaurus, Revised & Updated 2010

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Shared by

KAITLIN ANN TREPANIER

Advocate Innovator Writer Social Entrepreneur & Founder

Connecting The Dots With The Respect Principle

Smashwords interview @  www.smashwords.com

© All Rights Reserved 2014-2019

June 2, 2019 

Revised June, 6 2019