Have you noticed the trend of adding 'super' in front of adjectives these days? I'm seeing it some kids books. In Little Pea
by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the hero rolls down hills superfast. We also checked out Diego's Great Dinosaur Rescue (Go, Diego, Go!)
from the library. In this case, the gang hurries superfast and the dinosaurs are superbig. My husband and I have starting using the terms. At first, it was funny but now I wonder how this term could so easily enter our vocabulary. Perhaps it's related to the German 'uber' which in and of itself is a derivation of the Latin 'super'. The Germans have long attached uber as a prefix to words to indicate a heightened state. If this is the case then it's more of a wonder that English didn't adapt this wonderful tendency earlier.
The other element of surprise is how quickly slang and other word are adopted. It's like the expression "no worries". I never watched The Crocodile Hunter with Steve Irwin and I only watched Finding Nemo
once but that was all it took for me to casually throw out "no worries" whenever someone was late or when I encountered a typo in a report. (I do confess to being a huge fan of the movie Crocodile Dundee
however. That'll probably come back to haunt me in a job interview.) As a word lover, I'm intrigued when I come across word fads, new slang, and creative word play. Sometimes, it's an image conjured up by a word that captivates. Right now, I'm desperate to use shadowboxing, tycoon and faintly in some of my writing. I'll make sure that when I do, the words are super-appropriate.
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