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Author of the post here, I'll try to elaborate. My primary association with the word "fantastic" is simply "great" or "very good", as in "you did a fantastic j
by DanielDe 5y ago
Author of the post here, I'll try to elaborate.
My primary association with the word "fantastic" is simply "great" or "very good", as in "you did a fantastic job!". It's this meaning of the word that I found oddly disconnected from the word "imaginary". How do you get from something meaning "not real" to something meaning "very good"?
But the word "unreal" helped me make the leap, since that's a word I would use to describe something I thought was "very cool" or "well done".
- missblit 5y agoFantastic can still be used to describe something fantasy-esque in modern usage. Albeit it's probably getting more rare. Like "fantastic voyage", "fantastic beliefs", "fantastic visions".
- tesseract 5y agoAnd "fancy" still retains some links to "fantastic" and "fantasy", as in "fancy dress" or "flight of fancy".
- StavrosK 5y ago"Fantastical" is probably more used for that nowadays (and that very rarely), but it didn't occur to me that there could be any other explanation, as in Greek we use "fantastic" for both meanings commonly, ie "fantastic job" and "fantastic world" (imaginary world).
- cecilpl2 5y agoThat seems very roundabout. "unreal" seems like relatively recent slang to me, just like the "very great" meaning of "fantastic". "Fantastic" also means "based on fantasy", so the leap to "imaginary" is short.
- spoondan 5y agoSimilarly, awesome is great, but awful is terrible. And terrible and terrifying are bad, but terrific is awesome.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]