I never say terrific anymore

And I doubt that I ever did. It’s one of those painfully abandoned delightful words that always ssucced in escaping my output.

I was cruising Wikipedia on Franzen’s “Freedom”‘. It had a quotation from Obama, who though the novel was “terrific” after reading it during the summer. Now, I don’t pretend to have many things in common with Mr. President (for one thing, he governs a whole nation, whereas I don’t have any measurable significance or influence over the world) but it’s interesting to me that our vocab doesn’t overlap. Of course, it’s all to do with our separate and vastly different upbringing, our differing taste in literature and such and etc – but HOW COME I SAY “WONDERFUL”?

It rolls off my tongue so easily and yet i don’t harbour much affection for the word. It seems so washed out. So “nice”. So “fine”.

Things like this make me hyperaware of my usage of vocab. Why do i say what I say? Will I begin muttering “elementary” now that I’m firmly in the lap of the Sherlock canon?