4 ms·

It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting. From my British view, without reference to a dictionary, awesome is when you hear

It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting. From my British view, without reference to a dictionary, awesome is when you hear fighter jets zoom overhead, or a metal band from in front of the stage, or Niagara Falls, or a mile-long freight train full of rocks shaking the ground as it passes. The target has strength, size and power. An amazing thing is far beyond normal expectations in art, craft, or human behaviour. A detailed painting, where you step up closer and see it's even more detailed than you first thought. A carving from 3000 years ago with intricacy we didn't think possible at that time. Something exciting causes strong, (mostly) positive emotions. A roller coaster ride, an impromptu water fight in the summer, stripping off clothes and running into the sea in a group, getting close to the end of a game with the realization that you might win. Starting a job at Google and seeing 50 exabytes of data or a cluster of 10 million computers or whatever could be awesome. Someone's clever and efficient algorithm that reduces runtime by 10× could be amazing. Finishing the final university exam, expecting to pass the degree, could be exciting. Changing from licence version 3 to licence version 4 is none of these. It might be satisfying, or perhaps rewarding for the people directly involved.

endisneigh 3y ago
> Changing from licence version 3 to licence version 4 is none of these. It might be satisfying, or perhaps rewarding for the people directly involved. who are you to say how someone else should feel? It’s like someone not familiar with coding saying why should software engineers feel excited for releasing something? It’s literally just text you typed. Wow, boring. Your other examples are literally just your opinion, which is fine. Understand others do not feel the same way necessarily.
- deleted 3y ago
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DeathArrow 3y ago
>It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting. The British equivalents being "not too bad", "bloody" or "oh".
- Symbiote 3y ago
  Government rationing restricts us to one spoken "awesome" per year, using "amazing" twice and "exciting" five times, though children get double until their 13th birthday. Local government officials, BBC Radio 4 presenters and the nobility often sell or donate their ration to youth workers and minor celebrities.
wincy 3y ago
As an American it’s pretty awesome when I eat a particularly good street truck gyro after a night of drinking. I saw a vulture outside yesterday. I thought that was pretty amazing! I’d never seen one before. I was pretty excited yesterday to run after a rabbit in my yard like a five year old as my kids yelled “dad no don’t eat it!” But even as an American with my strange irrational exuberance and positive language creep, I can agree with you that changing from version 3 to 4 of a license is none of these things.
fathyb 3y ago
> awesome is when you hear fighter jets zoom overhead, or a metal band from in front of the stage, or Niagara Falls, or a mile-long freight train full of rocks shaking the ground as it passes. To me all of these things sound very lame. I find the Wikipedia licensing change more interesting. I think the post did a good job explaining why this matters and what this changes for Wikipedia.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
I'm also British, and I found this very exciting. I'm deeply involved in the study and development of FOSS and open culture licensing, and the improvement from CC-BY-SA-3.0 to CC-BY-SA-4.0 can't be overstated. Roller coaster ride? That's not exciting; that's frightening! I can kind of understand 'getting close to the end of a game with the realization that you might win', but this is more frequently nerve-racking for me. It's not exclusively an Americanism to be excited about law.
- riversflow 3y ago
  > frightening > nerve racking I’m a Californian and I don’t think something is exciting unless it’s somewhat frightening. That is to say Adrenaline is involved in excitement. Otherwise it is just fun, interesting, or cool.
fsckboy 3y ago
> It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting there are two aspects of American usage in play, just want to clarify. One is that Americans simply are more optimistic in the way that de Tocqueville noticed 200 years ago. Then layered on top of that are regional American differences where people in the northeast are optimistic but speak in a grumpier way ya fackin bastid, people in the middle are, okadiddlydokily, friendlier how they win friends and influence people, and people on the west coast really lay the positivity on thick, double rainbow all the way.

endisneigh 3y ago

> Changing from licence version 3 to licence version 4 is none of these. It might be satisfying, or perhaps rewarding for the people directly involved. who are you to say how someone else should feel? It’s like someone not familiar with coding saying why should software engineers feel excited for releasing something? It’s literally just text you typed. Wow, boring. Your other examples are literally just your opinion, which is fine. Understand others do not feel the same way necessarily.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

DeathArrow 3y ago

>It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting. The British equivalents being "not too bad", "bloody" or "oh".

Symbiote 3y ago
Government rationing restricts us to one spoken "awesome" per year, using "amazing" twice and "exciting" five times, though children get double until their 13th birthday. Local government officials, BBC Radio 4 presenters and the nobility often sell or donate their ration to youth workers and minor celebrities.

wincy 3y ago

As an American it’s pretty awesome when I eat a particularly good street truck gyro after a night of drinking. I saw a vulture outside yesterday. I thought that was pretty amazing! I’d never seen one before. I was pretty excited yesterday to run after a rabbit in my yard like a five year old as my kids yelled “dad no don’t eat it!” But even as an American with my strange irrational exuberance and positive language creep, I can agree with you that changing from version 3 to 4 of a license is none of these things.

fathyb 3y ago

> awesome is when you hear fighter jets zoom overhead, or a metal band from in front of the stage, or Niagara Falls, or a mile-long freight train full of rocks shaking the ground as it passes. To me all of these things sound very lame. I find the Wikipedia licensing change more interesting. I think the post did a good job explaining why this matters and what this changes for Wikipedia.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

I'm also British, and I found this very exciting. I'm deeply involved in the study and development of FOSS and open culture licensing, and the improvement from CC-BY-SA-3.0 to CC-BY-SA-4.0 can't be overstated. Roller coaster ride? That's not exciting; that's frightening! I can kind of understand 'getting close to the end of a game with the realization that you might win', but this is more frequently nerve-racking for me. It's not exclusively an Americanism to be excited about law.

riversflow 3y ago
> frightening > nerve racking I’m a Californian and I don’t think something is exciting unless it’s somewhat frightening. That is to say Adrenaline is involved in excitement. Otherwise it is just fun, interesting, or cool.

fsckboy 3y ago

> It's typical American usage where everything is awesome, amazing or exciting there are two aspects of American usage in play, just want to clarify. One is that Americans simply are more optimistic in the way that de Tocqueville noticed 200 years ago. Then layered on top of that are regional American differences where people in the northeast are optimistic but speak in a grumpier way ya fackin bastid, people in the middle are, okadiddlydokily, friendlier how they win friends and influence people, and people on the west coast really lay the positivity on thick, double rainbow all the way.