30 July 2014
awful
[aw-fuhl]
adjective
1. extremely bad; unpleasant; ugly: awful paintings; an awful job.
2. inspiring fear; dreadful; terrible: an awful noise.
3. solemnly impressive; inspiring awe: the awful majesty of alpine peaks.
4. full of awe; reverential.
5. extremely dangerous, risky, injurious, etc.: That was an awful fall she had. He took an awful chance by driving here so fast.
adverb
6. Informal. very; extremely: He did an awful good job of painting the barn. It’s awful hot in here.
Origin:
1200–50; Middle English a ( g ) heful, aueful; see awe, -ful; replacing Old English egefull dreadful
Related forms
aw·ful·ness, noun
qua·si-aw·ful, adjective
qua·si-aw·ful·ly, adverb
un·aw·ful, adjective
un·aw·ful·ness, noun
Can be confused: awful, awesome, offal (see usage note at the current entry).
Usage note
Although some object to any use of awful or awfully in any sense not connected with a feeling of awe, both have been used in other senses for several centuries. Awful and awfully as adverbial intensifiers— awful ( ly ) hot; awful ( ly ) cold —appear in the early 19th century, following much the same pattern as horribly and dreadfully. As an adverb awful is less formal in tone than awfully. In the sense “inspiring awe or fear” awesome has largely replaced awful.
Today’s aphorism
Having leveled my palace, don’t erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.
– Emily Bronte
On this day
30 July 1626 – earthquake in Naples, Italy, kills 70,000 people.
30 July 1818 – birthday of Emily Bronte, author of the novel, ‘Wuthering Heights‘. Died 19 December 1848.
30 July 1863 – birthday of Henry Ford, American industrialist and car maker. Died 7 April 1947.
30 July 1881 – birth of Smedley Butler, U.S. Marine Corp Major-General. He received 19 medals, five of which were for bravery. He twice received the Medal of Honor. Butler was, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in history. Nonetheless, he was an outspoken critic of war and military actions. He wrote a book called ‘War is a Racket’, which exposed the links between the military and industry, in which he stated that business interests directly benefit from warfare. Butler wrote a summary of the book, which stated: ‘War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes‘. He died on 21 June 1940.
30 July 1898 – W.K. Kellogg invents cornflakes.
30 July 1956 – the United States officially adopts ‘In God We Trust’ as the national motto.
30 July 1958 – birthday of Kate Bush, English singer/songwriter. In 1978, she had a hit song with ‘Wuthering Heights‘, a song about the novel of the same name which was written by Emily Bronte (whose birthday is also today). She followed this up with a number of other hits, including ‘Babooshka‘ and ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes‘.
30 July 1969 – birthday of Simon Baker, Australian actor. Stars in the TV series, ‘The Mentalist‘.