In this talk Jill Shargaa calls us out on our use of the word awesome. It everyday usage the word awesome has been trivialized. We use it to mean “good” or “cool” or “nice”. People say things like “thanks for giving me a lift, you’re awesome.”, or “that ice-cream was awesome.”
When we say these kinds of things what we mean is that the ice-cream was nice, or you are nice for giving me a lift. This is not the meaning of the word awesome. The word awe is correctly used to describe something that produces an experience of awe. As Jill notes in the talk, the Websters dictionary defines the word awesome as “fear mingled with admiration or reverence; a feeling produced by something majestic, sublime, etc.”
Awe is an experience of distinctive intensity an poignancy. Jill says that we use the word awe in relation to the wrong things. We use the word awe in relation to a small favor, or someone choosing to eat at a restaurant, or our enjoyment of an ice-cream. But Jill says that these things aren’t awesome. The Grand canyon is awesome, the pyramids are awesome, the lunar landings were awesome, not a small favor or a tasty ice-cream.
Jill has a point, we have trivialized the word awe. She is wrong to think that it is because we use in relation to the wrong things though. The problem is not that we use the word awe in relation to the wrong things, the problem is that we use the word awe to express the wrong emotions. When people say their friend is awesome when he gives them a lift or the ice-cream was awesome because it was tasty they are not experiencing awe, they just think it is nice or good.
This does not mean that a friend giving you a loft is not worthy of awe, or the delicious taste of an ice-cream is not worthy of awe. Someone eating a delicious ice-cream could suddenly be struck by all that has gone into making the ice-cream. She could be struck by the functioning of her taste 
buds which allow her to taste the ice-cream in the first place. There are a huge number of awe-worthy things she could wonder at when eating the ice-cream. The same is the case for someone offering a lift or letting us use their computer, or a little insect sitting on a stick.
If a person is aware of all these awe-worthy aspects of eating an ice-cream or getting a lift from a friend they will not be trivializing the word when they say it is “awesome”. Trivializing the word awesome is clearly then not a result of using it towards the wrong things it is the result of being unaware of all the truly awe-worthy things in the apparently mundane. We use the word awesome whilst completely unaware of the how majestic even the tiniest things are. We use the word to mean nice and good when we could stop and think about it and very quickly be in a position to use it in its true sense.
Perhaps then we should stop using the word “awesome” when we have failed to recognize the majestic character of that which we are commenting on. We mus remind ourselves that we are only at liberty to use the word awesome when we are in fact appreciating something majestic in the world, even if it is just an delicious ice-cream or a helpful friend or work colleague.