I signed up for an online art fest that began today and features a wide variety of artists teaching workshops over the next two weeks. I pulled up a video on sketching birds. The organizer used the word amazing three times in the first minute: it was “amazing” that the presenter was from Canada; it was “amazing” that she was back for a second year; and we were “amazing” for joining them. She is not alone, in my humble opinion, in overusing amazing as an adjective.

Merriam-Webster defines amazing as “causing astonishment, great wonder, or surprise” and their example is “an amazing story of personal bravery and survival.” I am neither surprised nor astonished that a presenter was able to join us from Canada nor that she joined in for a second year. As for my presence being amazing, I did sign up for the event and received a reminder email this morning, so it’s not much of a surprise that I am watching a video.

Merriam-Webster’s thesaurus lists 140 synonyms and similar words for word amazing. I would suggest that it was wonderful to have the presenter from Canada join us for the second year. And, while not a synonym for amazing, I might have said I was grateful for the viewers who chose to tune in to the video.

The English language qualifies to be described as amazing, I think, with a depth of expression that can move us from surprising to amazing to awe-inspiring. The next time you are tempted to describe something as amazing (or awesome as I think that gets overused as well), consider using a different adjective that gets at the heart of what you are trying to say.

Or, maybe we should just accept that everything is awesome and amazing: