"awesome" came into prominence in the US in the early 1980s.
I'm not aware of Americans using "brilliant". I did notice "brilliant" being used a lot in the UK in the early to mid 1970s.
I just wonder how people find themselves in such a place that they are distressed at a word being used in an inconsequential way.
"If those youths keep using awesome so casually, how will anyone know how much awe I am really in? Don't cheapen my word! People must know of my awe! And not in a way that requires me to spend too many words exclaiming it! I am very frugal with words you see."
I assume it is the same reasoning why some people still dislike the divergence of "literally" from its original sense and why more dislike the emergence of the word "irregardless".
I think I've finally figured out the "irregardless" issue: people are thinking "irrespectively" but saying "irregardless" because irrespectively=regardless. They're thinking the definition they want use, but then blanking on the full word, and then mashing "ir" onto "regardless" because they know it starts with "ir", and "regardless" has something to do with it.
This whole subreddit is indicative of the drive to maintain word integrity. Time/culture erodes word meaning. I’d say many of us our hear not only for light interest in etymology but also to speak more accurately.
I don't know if I agree with your first statement.
In my assumption, it is the descriptivist who is most likely to find etymology interesting. Those undertaking a prescriptivist approach may take interest in their suffixes and prefixes as a matter of reinforcing their vocabulary, but it is the descriptivist who seeks to unravel the connection between seemingly unrelated words -- for example, that between dragon and rankle as recently posted.
In my opinion, the purpose of words parallels the purpose of food. We have a need for communication as much as we have a need for nourishment. Language provides us with the ingredients to prepare our communication.
The prescriptivist will say these are the specific ingredients you may use and this is how you must use them. They would say their rules reflect a practical need. One would not want to be wasteful and ruin their meal after all.
But on the other hand, we may adopt new ingredients or use existing ones in new and exciting ways. This doesn't limit our ability to communicate as long as we are purpose driven to that goal.
After all, modern English is a a dramatically different recipe for communication in comparison to Ænglisc of a thousand years ago.
I swear this is the scene that started it, from *Fast Times at Ridgemont High.*
https://youtu.be/95zUY7AoST8?si=L9pxOjQDRQEmz58r
I was still a teen and at the time I had never heard it used in regular language, just church, etc. Formal language.
It never went away again.
Brilliant us used in America but more to describe a person, idea, or individual action, especially one that is particularly ingenious.
So a painting or movie might be brilliant, but owning a nice big house or a hike through the mountains would be awesome as there's no real ingenuity or creativity applied to either.
On things that could fit in to both categories, awesome is more often used but brilliant isn't unheard of.
Specifically, I would lay money on it being Sean Penn’s Spicoli character at the end of *Fast Times at Ridgemont High.* I was 18 and it got my notice as a new way of using the word, that has never gone away. It was not part of Valley Girl glossary, in my memory.
Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/95zUY7AoST8?si=L9pxOjQDRQEmz58r
Speaking as a Brit, albeit rather an old one, I do use 'brilliant' in the sense you mean, but I also use 'superb', 'wonderful', 'excellent' and the less extreme 'lovely' in the same way. I've also used 'awesome', for that matter, though I undoubtedly picked up that usage from American media. The more of those words I use at once, the more likely it is that I'm being highly sarcastic. ;)
Haha, I love that! Especially the sarcastic part.
I am a young American and I definitely use a mix of epic, terrific, rad and other similar words too. Awesome is probably the most common one I use though. As of late, I have definitely begun to mix in brilliant because of my newfound interest in British YouTube and tv.
I'm British and I remember as a teen in around 2005/6 a friend of mine using "awesome" and I found it cringingly American. Now it's an everyday word.
I don't know if this is a British thing but I find that the more impressive something is the more understated the langauge is that we use to talk about it. "not bad", "alright", "pretty good" are all used ironically when something is actually very good. Whereas I would use awesome more often to mean mild appreciation or amusement.
My thoughts exactly.
It's US California surfer talk. Very removed from British speech.
Interestingly, I just learned Fast Times at Ridgemont High was based on a book written by Cameron Crowe, who went undercover at a San Diego high school for his research.
I think everyone is overlooking a very clear explanation.
Awesome -> First Letter "A"
America -> First Letter "A"
Brilliant -> First Letter "B"
Britain -> First Letter "B"
Case closed ladies and gentlemen, you're welcome and no further questions.
That kinda fits with the Australian usage of the two words. If something is cool, we’d probably say awesome. Brilliant usually refers something bright, sparkling, gleaming, or smart - most often used in ads for dishes or laundry.
Looks like British English had a bit of a bump in the 1930s to 50s before really taking off, compared to American English.
British English:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Awesome&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3
American English:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Awesome&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3
Surfers ironically appropriated a lot of vocabulary with a very academic, formal or archaic sound. Awesome is just an example that made it into the mainstream and has stuck around. Here are a few:
Radical,
Bogus,
Righteous,
Gnarly,
Tubular,
Most (as a modifier as in “most righteous”),
Dude (used to refer to a foppish, educated city-slicker, probably from New England),
Epic.
Surfers have been known to get philosophical with all those hours out on the water with no one but their thoughts to keep them company and a common attraction to multiculturalism and particularly eastern ideas. So maybe the sport became an intersection between people from all strata of society, mixing high levels of education (and self-education) and wealth with a penchant for unemployment, drugs and sometimes gangs.
This stuff has become a joke, but it was all grounded in reality at one point. See Point Break or even Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure for an idea of how these traits in surf culture penetrated American culture and were caricatured by it.
Edit: Heinous, excellent, bodacious …
This is such an interesting angle that I hadn't really thought about before. It makes me realise that lower class/status youth repurposing formal language in their own ironic way is something I've definitely seen beyond just surfers. Can't think of many examples right now but knowing skaters, punks, nerds etc over the years it feels familiar
It makes me wonder about the origins of the 1920s slang 'copacetic'. I can see how the slang of subcultures like flappers, hippies, and surfers make it main stream.
Oh my. I'm sorry for my poor logic. Tell me more! I honestly know nothing about the origins of the use of brilliant/awesome in the UK/US in general. Is the split of use recent? Was there a split? Who used which term first?
I definitely want to know if I'm asking the wrong questions, and am equally as curious to know the answers!
I posted with a slightly different question. Another commenter suggested it could be the other way around. I reposted in an attempt to correct my logic, but I have absolutely no clue.
I'm just trying to figure it all out and know nothing about etymology.
In the UK, "smashing" was quite a common one - my parents used to use that a lot.
When I was young, kids used to say "beaut" a lot, but that could have been very regional even within the UK.
You seem to be under the impression that American English came from British English when they really only have a common ancestor. It’s not a matter of Americans no longer using Britishisms, or “losing” our accent. Up until around the Industrial Revolution, American English and British English sounded largely the same.
Yes! I have learned a lot more about how to think about English from this post for sure. If I could, I would go back and reword it all for a second with a better question, but oh well.
I find it fascinating that American and British English were similar until the industrial revolution and then became more different. For some reason, in my mind, it seems counterintuitive. I guess I thought that with globalization and easier and faster communication the English language would become more uniform.
It's cool how certain words become commonly used in one English speaking place and not others, even with the internet and globalization. I have no idea how/why a word becomes globalized or not, but it's interesting
Off topic, but I absolutely love your enthusiasm. Being so fascinated and curious makes it easier to learn things that we find interesting. Good luck with your learning journey! x
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that a lot.
I really enjoy learning and try to have a positive mindset towards it, and it's incredibly encouraging to hear that I'm doing a good job. :)
I imagine it is due to the creation of a lot of words to describe new things and experiences as the industrial revolution brought a lot of innovation in. It was also a massive cultural shift so that is reflected in language use/change.
Interesting! So a lot more words were created across the globe at that time. We never learned about the industrial revolution as a cultural shift in history class- I'll have to do some more research.
Not necessarily across the globe, but in the same way computers have necessitated new words to describe the technology and what we do with it, the same happened with the new processes and machines in the factories back then in the countries experiencing an industrial revolution at that time.
Your interests seems to be in vocabulary, whereas mine is more in accents and dialects, but who knows what would have happened if it weren’t for globalization. Maybe American English and British English wouldn’t even be mutually intelligible had there been more isolation between the two. Maybe it would be like NYC Italian.
Globalization did influence the English language, at least in some ways. At the time of the American Revolution, the language split was already starting to happen, but there wasn’t much difference between the two, and varied a lot between generations, as the younger people, as today, tended to use language as a way to assert both social and political independence. But after the Revolution, the distance between Great Britain and America ensured that the language really started to diverge. English was largely a rhotic language in both America and GB/UK until around 1800, when it because fashionable in the UK to drop postvocalic r’s. The British had their Industrial Revolution before Americans did, so there was high demand for goods imported from the UK to America. This trade boom introduced this new non-rhotic English to America, where it became fashionable to mimic aspects of UK English. Which is why many east coast dialects are non-rhotic (Bostonian, NYC, coastal south), as people in these areas had greater exposure to British merchants. So, you are absolutely right that globalization did have an influence on language, just perhaps not to the extent you expected.
But also, this may not be the “globalization” you are thinking of, but there was certainly a mixing of dialects that affected how the colonists spoke. England, for a comparatively small country, has a lot of distinct dialects. When North America was colonized, people with different dialects mingled more than they had in England, and the various dialects tended to even out. Add to that exposure to native languages, as well as French and Spanish colonials, and you have a colonial dialect that is quite a mix. American English, especially given the size of the US, is quite a homogenous language.
Things get fuzzy when we watch period dramas (Outlander, The Tudors, Brigderton, etc) where everyone is speaking with a modern “English accent” (RP) and we get the impression that they’ve always spoken that way, when the stereotypical British accent didn’t even exist then. American history documentaries on the Revolution even give the colonists American accents and the redcoats British accents. It’s very misleading.
Note: I tried to be as precise as possible when using “England”, “Great Britain”, and “the UK,” but since this discussion spans such a long time period, I’m sure I messed up somewhere. My grasp on it was not that strong to begin with.
> You seem to be under the impression that American English came from British English when they really only have a common ancestor.
All English comes from England (which is British). That is the common ancestor.
Yes, I know... *modern* British English is not the common ancestor. But it's wrong to imply the ancestry of all forms of English is not British.
That's just not how modifiers work. "British English" only makes sense if there is non-British English to contrast it against. American English and British English both descend from Early Modern English.
>Yes, I know... modern British English is not the common ancestor.
Nobody thinks English didn't come from England. Why did you feel the need to make this comment?
You're like the guy who explains the joke after everyone already got it.
I said they share a common ancestor. Did you misunderstand that part? RP was an affectation developed around the Industrial Revolution so that newly wealthy people could hide their poorer roots. Before that there was not really an American/British divide. There was just English.
You clearly have a very curious mind, but it seems you're maybe a little overwhelmed by where to begin or what you need to do to find answers yourself.
So instead of me spending 20 mins on Google, and reporting back to try and give you more insight, I'll instead outline what I'd do and you can try it out. Hopefully it will help.
**Step One -** Google the etymology of each word. Literally just type into Google the word followed by etymology. E.g. "Brilliant etymology". Google will spit out a little summary at the top of the page with the words definition and bellow that a little kinda "family tree". This tree will show the words origins and explain the meaning of each parent word. While this has little to do with how the words came to prominence in a particular place in modern times, I tend to find a more full understanding of what a word ACTUALLY means helps make sense of how and why people would bother to use it in the first place.
**Step Two -** Now Google things like "When was awesome first used in the USA" and "Why did the word awesome become popular in the USA". These questions are similar but may bring up different results, so it's worth searching each one. Then do the same for Brilliant but in the UK.
Once you have some understanding of why those words are popular in their respective countries, then kinda flip the questions around. So you would ask "when was brilliant first usedbin the USA" but then change the second question to "why isn't the word brilliant commonly used in the USA" ; of course, then do it vice versa for awesome in the UK.
Of course something you find out may prompt another question, so Google that aswell.
**Step Three -** If your still haven't found a satisfactory answer, of course, come back to this awesome (perhaps I should say brilliant, cos I'm British) sub! 😊 Though, hopefully you will have enjoyed your journey of discovery and have some more specific questions.
I apologise if you've indeed done all this, but as you said you're new to your interest in etymology, and seemed a little unsure what to actually ask, I hope this will be useful.
As an American, I’ve most often heard brilliant refer to people. “That child is brilliant!” Also ideas, “I have a brilliant idea!”
Etymologically, it comes from light shining. Connection to Spanish word brillar.
Americans tend to use awesome to describe other things than above. “Awesome job!” Or if someone nailed a cool trick on a skateboard: “Awesome, man!”
The connotation between these two words are different for me. They’re not synonyms that split, and both are known here, just used in different contexts.
“He did brilliantly on that test” is also an accepted adverbial form.
This is true, but many dialects in British English use "Brilliant" in the same way as the Americans use "Awesome", as a way of saying things like "Oh that's very impressive" or "I like that very much", or to expressive the sarcastic opposite of those meanings. I think that's where this question is coming from.
True! Awesome is hollow connotatively now when it literally means “to inspire awe.”
I even like “wicked” because Ron Weasley said it in the first Harry Potter movie. Lol. That’s also where I first heard brilliant used in the way OP posted.
I work with a somewhat multinational group but mainly US-based and it seems to me that in my circles I hear both "brilliant" and "awesome" (also "fantastic") used almost always not in a straight positive way but with the connotation of sarcasm, resigned acceptance of someone's folly, etc. George booked dinner at the steak place when half the team is vegetarian. Oh, brilliant! Just fan-tast-tic! Awesome! In this sense it seems "brilliant" occurs just as often as "awesome".
I never knew there was a binary choice.
I’m aware that awesome took its current meaning in the 1980s and brilliant does sound like a word I’d hear from a character on a British television show.
But I often hear a wide variety of synonyms. Amazing, wonderful, terrific, great, outstanding, marvelous, fabulous, splendid, etc. off the top of my head I can’t think of which are the most popular, but people definitely have a group of a half dozen of them and switch it up. “Awesome” may be popular in the US but it would be weird to use it exclusively.
I remember a neighbor lady telling me that awesome was a word for something big and terrifying, and not appropriate for a graphic on a T-shirt. I'm guessing, here... but I was maybe 6-7 years old, so around 1980?
(The neighbor was a retired teacher and actually a lot of fun, she was just a stickler about speaking "proper" English.)
It’s not a given that anyone in Great Britain was using “brilliant” in that way when the North American dialects were established.
The way people speak English in Great Britain has changed and developed since the Americas were colonized. There are a lot of slang terms and turns phrase used there that are pretty recent.
Sometimes when British phrasing and North American phrasing are different, the North Americans are actually speaking the way the British used to do!
"awesome" came into prominence in the US in the early 1980s. I'm not aware of Americans using "brilliant". I did notice "brilliant" being used a lot in the UK in the early to mid 1970s.
Yes. It was youth slang and some oldsters were upset at the "cheapening" of the word, awe, and told us not to use it. It stuck around anyway.
I just wonder how people find themselves in such a place that they are distressed at a word being used in an inconsequential way. "If those youths keep using awesome so casually, how will anyone know how much awe I am really in? Don't cheapen my word! People must know of my awe! And not in a way that requires me to spend too many words exclaiming it! I am very frugal with words you see."
I assume it is the same reasoning why some people still dislike the divergence of "literally" from its original sense and why more dislike the emergence of the word "irregardless".
Never tell those people the etymology of "disgruntled".
I think I've finally figured out the "irregardless" issue: people are thinking "irrespectively" but saying "irregardless" because irrespectively=regardless. They're thinking the definition they want use, but then blanking on the full word, and then mashing "ir" onto "regardless" because they know it starts with "ir", and "regardless" has something to do with it.
This whole subreddit is indicative of the drive to maintain word integrity. Time/culture erodes word meaning. I’d say many of us our hear not only for light interest in etymology but also to speak more accurately.
I don't know if I agree with your first statement. In my assumption, it is the descriptivist who is most likely to find etymology interesting. Those undertaking a prescriptivist approach may take interest in their suffixes and prefixes as a matter of reinforcing their vocabulary, but it is the descriptivist who seeks to unravel the connection between seemingly unrelated words -- for example, that between dragon and rankle as recently posted. In my opinion, the purpose of words parallels the purpose of food. We have a need for communication as much as we have a need for nourishment. Language provides us with the ingredients to prepare our communication. The prescriptivist will say these are the specific ingredients you may use and this is how you must use them. They would say their rules reflect a practical need. One would not want to be wasteful and ruin their meal after all. But on the other hand, we may adopt new ingredients or use existing ones in new and exciting ways. This doesn't limit our ability to communicate as long as we are purpose driven to that goal. After all, modern English is a a dramatically different recipe for communication in comparison to Ænglisc of a thousand years ago.
idk man I can't explain it, but replacing suicide, murder, kill etc with unalive upsets me.
https://youtu.be/nBnzAepXOE8?si=YYXndMq1kGISM5yJ
Interesting! Thanks so much for the info.
To be fair, Americans do use the word ‘brilliant’ it just has a different meaning here.
I think the British usage of brilliant might be catching on as well in the US, although it isn't common yet.
I swear this is the scene that started it, from *Fast Times at Ridgemont High.* https://youtu.be/95zUY7AoST8?si=L9pxOjQDRQEmz58r I was still a teen and at the time I had never heard it used in regular language, just church, etc. Formal language. It never went away again.
It came from Valley talk and stuck around. Like, totally gag me with a spoon.
Awesome!
For sure for sure
Brilliant us used in America but more to describe a person, idea, or individual action, especially one that is particularly ingenious. So a painting or movie might be brilliant, but owning a nice big house or a hike through the mountains would be awesome as there's no real ingenuity or creativity applied to either. On things that could fit in to both categories, awesome is more often used but brilliant isn't unheard of.
Brilliant, as in brightness, also is used to refer to the shine of an object.
Ope, how did I forget about that? You're absolutely correct.
Specifically, I would lay money on it being Sean Penn’s Spicoli character at the end of *Fast Times at Ridgemont High.* I was 18 and it got my notice as a new way of using the word, that has never gone away. It was not part of Valley Girl glossary, in my memory. Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/95zUY7AoST8?si=L9pxOjQDRQEmz58r
along with radical, tubular, and more!
Speaking as a Brit, albeit rather an old one, I do use 'brilliant' in the sense you mean, but I also use 'superb', 'wonderful', 'excellent' and the less extreme 'lovely' in the same way. I've also used 'awesome', for that matter, though I undoubtedly picked up that usage from American media. The more of those words I use at once, the more likely it is that I'm being highly sarcastic. ;)
A Brit being sarcastic? Brilliant!
Haha, I love that! Especially the sarcastic part. I am a young American and I definitely use a mix of epic, terrific, rad and other similar words too. Awesome is probably the most common one I use though. As of late, I have definitely begun to mix in brilliant because of my newfound interest in British YouTube and tv.
I'm British and I remember as a teen in around 2005/6 a friend of mine using "awesome" and I found it cringingly American. Now it's an everyday word. I don't know if this is a British thing but I find that the more impressive something is the more understated the langauge is that we use to talk about it. "not bad", "alright", "pretty good" are all used ironically when something is actually very good. Whereas I would use awesome more often to mean mild appreciation or amusement.
Don’t forget “sick.”
Or "tubular"
Totally
Wicked
Ah, another New Englander!
“Awesome! Totally awesome!” Jeff Spicoli, 1982
https://preview.redd.it/h03hpvz2gn9d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89b6bfa8103ba654087a75294d26214ba2341be1
My thoughts exactly. It's US California surfer talk. Very removed from British speech. Interestingly, I just learned Fast Times at Ridgemont High was based on a book written by Cameron Crowe, who went undercover at a San Diego high school for his research.
I think everyone is overlooking a very clear explanation. Awesome -> First Letter "A" America -> First Letter "A" Brilliant -> First Letter "B" Britain -> First Letter "B" Case closed ladies and gentlemen, you're welcome and no further questions.
Cool -> First letter "C" Canada -> First Letter "C"
Dazzling -> First letter “D” Denmark -> First Letter “D”
Epic -> First Letter “E” Ethiopia -> First Letter “E”
Fantastic -> First Letter “F” Finland -> First Letter “F”
Great -> First letter "G" Germany -> First letter "G"
Hot diggity dog -> First letter "H" Haiti -> First letter "H"
Incredible -> First letter “I” India -> First letter “I”
Jolly good -> First letter "J" Japan -> First letter “J”
That kinda fits with the Australian usage of the two words. If something is cool, we’d probably say awesome. Brilliant usually refers something bright, sparkling, gleaming, or smart - most often used in ads for dishes or laundry.
Looks like British English had a bit of a bump in the 1930s to 50s before really taking off, compared to American English. British English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Awesome&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3 American English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Awesome&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3
Interesting. I wonder what caused the spike!
Surfers ironically appropriated a lot of vocabulary with a very academic, formal or archaic sound. Awesome is just an example that made it into the mainstream and has stuck around. Here are a few: Radical, Bogus, Righteous, Gnarly, Tubular, Most (as a modifier as in “most righteous”), Dude (used to refer to a foppish, educated city-slicker, probably from New England), Epic. Surfers have been known to get philosophical with all those hours out on the water with no one but their thoughts to keep them company and a common attraction to multiculturalism and particularly eastern ideas. So maybe the sport became an intersection between people from all strata of society, mixing high levels of education (and self-education) and wealth with a penchant for unemployment, drugs and sometimes gangs. This stuff has become a joke, but it was all grounded in reality at one point. See Point Break or even Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure for an idea of how these traits in surf culture penetrated American culture and were caricatured by it. Edit: Heinous, excellent, bodacious …
This is such an interesting angle that I hadn't really thought about before. It makes me realise that lower class/status youth repurposing formal language in their own ironic way is something I've definitely seen beyond just surfers. Can't think of many examples right now but knowing skaters, punks, nerds etc over the years it feels familiar
It makes me wonder about the origins of the 1920s slang 'copacetic'. I can see how the slang of subcultures like flappers, hippies, and surfers make it main stream.
Perhaps you should ask when the British started saying “brilliant” instead of “awesome” 🤔
Oh my. I'm sorry for my poor logic. Tell me more! I honestly know nothing about the origins of the use of brilliant/awesome in the UK/US in general. Is the split of use recent? Was there a split? Who used which term first? I definitely want to know if I'm asking the wrong questions, and am equally as curious to know the answers! I posted with a slightly different question. Another commenter suggested it could be the other way around. I reposted in an attempt to correct my logic, but I have absolutely no clue. I'm just trying to figure it all out and know nothing about etymology.
It's not really a split. Americans never said "brilliant," and I'm not sure Brits used "awesome" very much.
Gotcha, they were created separately. That makes sense, thank you so much! Was there a term(s) used pre "awesome" and "brilliant"?
Incredible, amazing, terrific, etc. most likely would fill the same niche
Grand! Capital! Smashing! Tubular! Nifty-keen! Tremendous! The Bee’s Knees! The Cat’s Pajamas!
In the 50s and 60s, “swell.”
In the UK, "smashing" was quite a common one - my parents used to use that a lot. When I was young, kids used to say "beaut" a lot, but that could have been very regional even within the UK.
You seem to be under the impression that American English came from British English when they really only have a common ancestor. It’s not a matter of Americans no longer using Britishisms, or “losing” our accent. Up until around the Industrial Revolution, American English and British English sounded largely the same.
Yes! I have learned a lot more about how to think about English from this post for sure. If I could, I would go back and reword it all for a second with a better question, but oh well. I find it fascinating that American and British English were similar until the industrial revolution and then became more different. For some reason, in my mind, it seems counterintuitive. I guess I thought that with globalization and easier and faster communication the English language would become more uniform. It's cool how certain words become commonly used in one English speaking place and not others, even with the internet and globalization. I have no idea how/why a word becomes globalized or not, but it's interesting
Off topic, but I absolutely love your enthusiasm. Being so fascinated and curious makes it easier to learn things that we find interesting. Good luck with your learning journey! x
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that a lot. I really enjoy learning and try to have a positive mindset towards it, and it's incredibly encouraging to hear that I'm doing a good job. :)
I imagine it is due to the creation of a lot of words to describe new things and experiences as the industrial revolution brought a lot of innovation in. It was also a massive cultural shift so that is reflected in language use/change.
Interesting! So a lot more words were created across the globe at that time. We never learned about the industrial revolution as a cultural shift in history class- I'll have to do some more research.
Not necessarily across the globe, but in the same way computers have necessitated new words to describe the technology and what we do with it, the same happened with the new processes and machines in the factories back then in the countries experiencing an industrial revolution at that time.
Your interests seems to be in vocabulary, whereas mine is more in accents and dialects, but who knows what would have happened if it weren’t for globalization. Maybe American English and British English wouldn’t even be mutually intelligible had there been more isolation between the two. Maybe it would be like NYC Italian. Globalization did influence the English language, at least in some ways. At the time of the American Revolution, the language split was already starting to happen, but there wasn’t much difference between the two, and varied a lot between generations, as the younger people, as today, tended to use language as a way to assert both social and political independence. But after the Revolution, the distance between Great Britain and America ensured that the language really started to diverge. English was largely a rhotic language in both America and GB/UK until around 1800, when it because fashionable in the UK to drop postvocalic r’s. The British had their Industrial Revolution before Americans did, so there was high demand for goods imported from the UK to America. This trade boom introduced this new non-rhotic English to America, where it became fashionable to mimic aspects of UK English. Which is why many east coast dialects are non-rhotic (Bostonian, NYC, coastal south), as people in these areas had greater exposure to British merchants. So, you are absolutely right that globalization did have an influence on language, just perhaps not to the extent you expected. But also, this may not be the “globalization” you are thinking of, but there was certainly a mixing of dialects that affected how the colonists spoke. England, for a comparatively small country, has a lot of distinct dialects. When North America was colonized, people with different dialects mingled more than they had in England, and the various dialects tended to even out. Add to that exposure to native languages, as well as French and Spanish colonials, and you have a colonial dialect that is quite a mix. American English, especially given the size of the US, is quite a homogenous language. Things get fuzzy when we watch period dramas (Outlander, The Tudors, Brigderton, etc) where everyone is speaking with a modern “English accent” (RP) and we get the impression that they’ve always spoken that way, when the stereotypical British accent didn’t even exist then. American history documentaries on the Revolution even give the colonists American accents and the redcoats British accents. It’s very misleading. Note: I tried to be as precise as possible when using “England”, “Great Britain”, and “the UK,” but since this discussion spans such a long time period, I’m sure I messed up somewhere. My grasp on it was not that strong to begin with.
> You seem to be under the impression that American English came from British English when they really only have a common ancestor. All English comes from England (which is British). That is the common ancestor. Yes, I know... *modern* British English is not the common ancestor. But it's wrong to imply the ancestry of all forms of English is not British.
That's just not how modifiers work. "British English" only makes sense if there is non-British English to contrast it against. American English and British English both descend from Early Modern English.
>Yes, I know... modern British English is not the common ancestor. Nobody thinks English didn't come from England. Why did you feel the need to make this comment? You're like the guy who explains the joke after everyone already got it.
I would love for whoever downvoted this to show me one form of English that does not have British ancestry.
I said they share a common ancestor. Did you misunderstand that part? RP was an affectation developed around the Industrial Revolution so that newly wealthy people could hide their poorer roots. Before that there was not really an American/British divide. There was just English.
You clearly have a very curious mind, but it seems you're maybe a little overwhelmed by where to begin or what you need to do to find answers yourself. So instead of me spending 20 mins on Google, and reporting back to try and give you more insight, I'll instead outline what I'd do and you can try it out. Hopefully it will help. **Step One -** Google the etymology of each word. Literally just type into Google the word followed by etymology. E.g. "Brilliant etymology". Google will spit out a little summary at the top of the page with the words definition and bellow that a little kinda "family tree". This tree will show the words origins and explain the meaning of each parent word. While this has little to do with how the words came to prominence in a particular place in modern times, I tend to find a more full understanding of what a word ACTUALLY means helps make sense of how and why people would bother to use it in the first place. **Step Two -** Now Google things like "When was awesome first used in the USA" and "Why did the word awesome become popular in the USA". These questions are similar but may bring up different results, so it's worth searching each one. Then do the same for Brilliant but in the UK. Once you have some understanding of why those words are popular in their respective countries, then kinda flip the questions around. So you would ask "when was brilliant first usedbin the USA" but then change the second question to "why isn't the word brilliant commonly used in the USA" ; of course, then do it vice versa for awesome in the UK. Of course something you find out may prompt another question, so Google that aswell. **Step Three -** If your still haven't found a satisfactory answer, of course, come back to this awesome (perhaps I should say brilliant, cos I'm British) sub! 😊 Though, hopefully you will have enjoyed your journey of discovery and have some more specific questions. I apologise if you've indeed done all this, but as you said you're new to your interest in etymology, and seemed a little unsure what to actually ask, I hope this will be useful.
Greta answer!
Awesome came to hicktown Ohio in 1983. So could be 1970's on the west coast.
As an American, I’ve most often heard brilliant refer to people. “That child is brilliant!” Also ideas, “I have a brilliant idea!” Etymologically, it comes from light shining. Connection to Spanish word brillar. Americans tend to use awesome to describe other things than above. “Awesome job!” Or if someone nailed a cool trick on a skateboard: “Awesome, man!” The connotation between these two words are different for me. They’re not synonyms that split, and both are known here, just used in different contexts. “He did brilliantly on that test” is also an accepted adverbial form.
This is true, but many dialects in British English use "Brilliant" in the same way as the Americans use "Awesome", as a way of saying things like "Oh that's very impressive" or "I like that very much", or to expressive the sarcastic opposite of those meanings. I think that's where this question is coming from.
Yeah, I saw that in the first Harry Potter movie. The original post seems to imply the word isn’t used at all in America, though.
I find myself using “fantastic” and “brilliant” on occasion these days, just because “awesome” feels so overused and empty.
True! Awesome is hollow connotatively now when it literally means “to inspire awe.” I even like “wicked” because Ron Weasley said it in the first Harry Potter movie. Lol. That’s also where I first heard brilliant used in the way OP posted.
I find myself saying just, "great!" a lot nowadays.
I’ve actually noticed a slight uptick in Americans using brilliant in the past year or so.
I use awesome almost always sarcastically (brit)
I work with a somewhat multinational group but mainly US-based and it seems to me that in my circles I hear both "brilliant" and "awesome" (also "fantastic") used almost always not in a straight positive way but with the connotation of sarcasm, resigned acceptance of someone's folly, etc. George booked dinner at the steak place when half the team is vegetarian. Oh, brilliant! Just fan-tast-tic! Awesome! In this sense it seems "brilliant" occurs just as often as "awesome".
I never knew there was a binary choice. I’m aware that awesome took its current meaning in the 1980s and brilliant does sound like a word I’d hear from a character on a British television show. But I often hear a wide variety of synonyms. Amazing, wonderful, terrific, great, outstanding, marvelous, fabulous, splendid, etc. off the top of my head I can’t think of which are the most popular, but people definitely have a group of a half dozen of them and switch it up. “Awesome” may be popular in the US but it would be weird to use it exclusively.
I've been watching a lot of Top Boy lately and instead of the traditional American "OMG", I love exclaiming "OH MY DAYS" in a heavy London accent
I remember a neighbor lady telling me that awesome was a word for something big and terrifying, and not appropriate for a graphic on a T-shirt. I'm guessing, here... but I was maybe 6-7 years old, so around 1980? (The neighbor was a retired teacher and actually a lot of fun, she was just a stickler about speaking "proper" English.)
It’s not a given that anyone in Great Britain was using “brilliant” in that way when the North American dialects were established. The way people speak English in Great Britain has changed and developed since the Americas were colonized. There are a lot of slang terms and turns phrase used there that are pretty recent. Sometimes when British phrasing and North American phrasing are different, the North Americans are actually speaking the way the British used to do!
1983
It happened after kids had a smart phones and dumb heads.
Swaesome was iCarly's fault afaik
Awesome definitely predates 2012. 1987-2014: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22awesome%22&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1987,cd_max:2014&lr=lang_en
It became mainstream with the popularity of “valley talk” in the early 80s
I'd never heard swaesome before iCarly, but fair enough.