I hereby reclaim the word "EPIC" on behalf of everything in this world that transcends the sandwich you had for lunch or the manner in which your friend tripped over the sidewalk. I am a high school English teacher, and I have the power to do this in times of crisis.

noamsml · 2 years

Mistranslating the Iliad is an epic failure.

Edit: Spelling

m4ck · 2 years

Can I still use "awesome" to describe something really cool, but not technically awe-inspiring?

LynchThemDiggers · 2 years

If you won't be describing it to your grand-children, it isn't epic.

That's actually a really good way to determine epicness.

Crotalus · 2 years

The Internet Language Timeline

1 - 4chan starts using a word in an ironic way.

2 - Instantly adopted by Reddit, Digg, etc.

3 - Little kids hear of this and start using it, followed by people who don't even like computers.

4 - The same fucking people who said those things in every other sentence now demand it stop, somehow well above who they were a few months before.

DontNeglectTheBalls · 2 years

I find myself intrigued by the overuse of this word.

I guess you could say I was...

puts on sunglasses

epicurious.

JeezumCrow · 2 years

Unfortunately for English teachers, there is no standardization of the language. No Académie Française here. The only authority on what is proper in English is in the people who speak it. We're just speaking a Norman-Saxon creole a few centuries down the line.

yujikle · 2 years

To those who use this word all too frequently: words have meaning. Language is important.

That's what I understand too.

I think it's awesome that you want to take this word back.

timothywilliam · 2 years

you have not yet experienced, like sex IRL

You had me until here.

EDIT: I'm an asshole.

herrmister · 2 years

At the risk of sounding like a linguistic-anarchist, I say leave language alone. If people want to use words in a way that's not how it was used before, well let them. We'll find other ways of expressing those concepts. Language changes all the time and is in a constant state of destruction and creation. It's what I find beautiful about it.

justonewordforyou · 2 years

"Epic" isn't an example of a natural change to language over a long period of time. It's a short-term fad that is more like a hiccup and less like a trend.

So was "cool".

So was "okay", if you buy the theory that it came about from the fad of comically misspelling words ("Oll Korrect").

Granted, so was "groovy".

I don't have any particular love for "epic" meaning good, and don't figure it will be around in 50 years, but something starting as a fad doesn't make it illegitimate automatically.

I'll get off your lawn now.

EDIT: I noticed you edited your post. The argument I quoted isn't in there any longer. As long as I'm playing devil's advocate:

When you confuse the definitions of the words "epic" and "good," you leave yourself stranded when it comes time to describe something truly amazing that you have not yet experienced

I assure you, I am able to describe a burrito as awesome, or a mountaintop view as awesome, in such a way that the listener knows which way I mean.

I suspect you just really don't like the word 'epic'.

tempname · 2 years

Thank you kind sir! Please also take back fail, I know its not as important as epic is but still the new use hurts my ears and brain.

desimusxvii · 2 years

I partially blame WoW. Thousands of players running around with "epic" gear. Just how epic is it if everyone has it?

hot_pastrami · 2 years

While you are using your powers for good, could you also amputate the "figurative & hyperbolic" definition from "literally"? When a person adds "literally" to non-literal statements it makes me want to put kittens in a blender.

utterpedant · 2 years

Using a catchphrase or idiom is faster and easier than thinking through your lexicon and assembling a unique sentence. "Epic" and "fail" are just word fads. The people who say something is "full of win" are the same people who said "Yeah, baby!" all the time after Austin Powers came out.

It will pass. Until then, we all suffer.

-Daedalus · 2 years

I resent the assumptions you make about my life.

Consider the midday nap of which I partook the day before last. It was, without a doubt, the single most epic nap experience by any man to date. The earth shook, the skies sang, crying tears of joy unto the ground, making a muck of everything. Small woodland critters gathered to witness "The Über-nap", chittering amongst themself in a frenzy. Many of them lost their minds and went feral for the sheer amazingness of my nap, driven mad by their want and need to partake.

The dreams, by gar the dreams! Stripper volcanoes, endless streams of single-dollar bills errupting from my many pockets; faraway, fanciful lands wraugth with danger and adventure, an unending buffet, with a selection so grand it seems to go on for miles.

Truly this WAS the most EPIC of naps. It shall be spoken of in hushed tones for generations to come!

Who are you to say otherwise? Fie! Fie on you for your blasphemous claims!

craigiest · 2 years

As another high school English teacher, here's my take: Unlike 'awesome', 'epic' isn't a particularly useful word in its main sense. (And it never meant "truly amazing.") When did anyone describe anything as epic besides the Odyssey and the occasional really long movie? As an English teacher, this slang redefinition is a boon. Since 'epic' now means "really cool in a beyond-other-things sort of way", when you do teach a REAL epic, it will automatically be cool, because it is, by definition, epic. And when the kids read it, and realize that what happens to the main character is even more epic than anything they've ever called epic, the book will be even better to them. Seriously, you should be thanking your lucky stars for this particular corruption of the English language.

ManiacalV · 2 years

When the average internet junkie has beaten their misguided sense of irony to a thick, horse-flavored paste, they need to find something besides their douchEmo-y wardrobe to co-opt, like language. Calling a skateboard move 'Epic' is on par with the equally asinine habit of labeling everything 'Awesome' like we used to use back in my teens during the mid 80's. I still catch myself using it. The Hindenburg was awesome (and terrible). Dark Tower, while being a fantastic game, was not truly awe inspiring. It was, on the other hand, quite epic.

scoofy · 2 years

As a student of philosophy of language, i refuse to bow to this tyranny. We must take our language back from the schoolmarms, to whom an unjust, monarchical authority has been given. Our language is fluid, and no matter how the technocrats of the classroom attempt to stifle it's movement, we must resist. The epic use of "epic" will result in a legit establishment fail. English speakers of the english speaking world, do not bow to the capitalizers; the only rules are those you impose on yourselves; the revolution will not be graded.

stillbourne · 2 years

Your attempt to delineate a more verbose classification of the adjective form of the word epic has been denied. The locution of the term epic will carry forward, unceasing, by your ineffectual endeavor to restore it to its formal, more banal, definition. Furthermore, any venture to re-characterize the terms fail, or legit will likewise be repudiated. To ensure your cooperation in this matter I will be holding Shakespeare as a hostage.

Watawkichaw · 2 years

how about the most basic of overused words in our culture? Love and Hate? If you love grilled cheese sandwiches, you have attachment issues. If you spend the required energy into hating Nickelback, you are paying them too much attention.

BlahBlahNyborg · 2 years

And don't replace "epic" with "very unique". That's going from bad to worser.

azth · 2 years

like sex IRL... If you won't be describing it to your grand-children, it isn't epic.

Kids... sex with your grandma was epic!!

d0nkeh · 2 years

Epic now means "thats kind of cool", where "cool" means something slightly positive.

mitchumm · 2 years

You know what would be fucking hilarious‽ If someone wrote "EPIC POST!!!"؟

APeacefulWarrior · 2 years

I'm currently working on getting a history teaching certificate. Does that mean, in a time of crisis, I can declare that once and for all the holocaust really did happen? ;-)

Also, is Gilgamesh actually epic? I find it pretty boring myself.

bongozap · 2 years

I am a high school English teacher, and I have the power to do this in times of crisis.

Epic wanker

[deleted] · 2 years

This is truly an epic post. :)

mangocurry · 2 years

Languages change, and evolve depending on the cultures that use it. Any language that doesn't change/evolve is a dead language.

Stormwatch36 · 2 years

I seriously will tell my grandchildren about the time an English teacher deemed my peers "Stay at Home Fappers", therefore I feel extremely justified in calling this submission epic.

Pwrong · 2 years

YOU WANT IT ALL BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE IT IT'S IN YOUR FACE BUT YOU CAN'T GRAB IT

ultrafetzig · 2 years

Cool. These darn memes are so lame, it's gay.

[deleted] · 2 years

Epic post, bro.

baddox · 2 years

This has nothing to do with English or any specific language and everything to do with simply user-using a word to the point where it becomes annoying. It doesn't even lose its meaning, it's just annoying. No appeal to linguistics or the "importance of language" is necessary. It's just annoying.

namrog · 2 years

You can touch it, smell it, taste it so sweet But it makes no difference 'cause it knocks you off your feet

mattyville · 2 years

Dear Lord of the English Language and Ruler of All That is Sacred to Linguistics, can you please take back all meanings of "own" that does not directly relate to possessions and those who possess them?

This has also started to annoy me.

Neebat · 2 years

That was an epic attempt to claim a school teacher has power.

StoneCypher · 2 years

My highschool English teacher was actually piss poor at english. For example, they would use double quotes to annote examples, which are single quoted; they would misuse phrases like "confuse ... for" when they meant "substitute ... for", they would fail to understand that one cannot be stranded without being trapped in a physical location, they would complain about metaphoric misuse of words while metaphorically misusing "truly", they would think that slang shortenings of words like "legitimate" were themselves words, they would fail to understand the meaning of simple words like "frequently", et cetera.

Frequency, for example, is a ratioitc word. That is, if you have a light which shines every hundred thousand years, and ninety nine times in a hundred it shines in green, then it shines in green with an extremely high frequency. (That's why sound and color, both waveforms, are described as frequencies - it's the peak frequency.)

The best was when they would get all butthurt about words and go off on a rant that was completely numbskulled. For example, there was the Greek "epic" - a form of poetry. You'd think a highschool English teacher would know what an epic was, but of course, no: they thought that the word epic meant "great" or "good", when it actually means "in the form of a hero." This is of course a ridiculous thing for an English teacher to not know, since most of the Greek heroic epics are about terrible failures, since Greek drama was so obsessed with tragedy derived from hubris. This was largely because the teacher in question had no literary background, which meant their bellyaching about literature was hilarious.

And it was great, because the highschool English teacher the next door over thought epic meant "long", whereas most epics were only a few pages, because they'd never read an epic either.

Nonetheless the two came to loggerheads, arguing about the true meaning of the word, because they had both become so fascinated with their own occupation that they'd forgotten that neither one of them had the faintest idea what the etymology of epic - from "epos", simply meaning "poem" - actually was.

They were, in short, just talking, using their job as authority, when in fact they didn't even know that they were, simply put, in the wrong line of work.

MojoJosh, there's a reason you teach at the highschool level.

[deleted] · 2 years

any effort to control popular language usage is misguided and bound to fail. if you were a real fan of language you would appreciate it as it naturally morphs over time. sorry teach, sometimes the troof hurts.

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