The cool cool word of the day

It's fun to keep up with the English language (what's left of it), and a good place to follow the torn and tattered remnants of our mother tongue is the morning tv news shows, where grammar is hardly even considered, and mispronunciations are the rule of the day.

I'm all through hammering on their grammar and pronunciation, although I'm usually glad that Peggy is outside enjoying her porch coffee when Michael Strahan reports on the "Chipolte" restaurant chain.  

My new thing is catching the trending words on the news shows. For the longest time, everything was "horrific." Car wrecks, natural disasters, Madonna movies: all got the "horrific" label stuck on them and everyone had to use it.

Also on the abused words and terms list: "latebreaking," which covers anything that happened since breakfast, "overnight," which on Good Morning America means anything that happened since 9 AM yesterday, "walk back," which does not refer to when your car won't start and you leave it at work, but, rather, to when a politician or crook of some stripe gets caught in a big fib and they stutter and stammer three choruses of what they MEANT to say, and, of course, the Cliche Twins, "the devil is in the details," and "Pride goeth before a fall."

"The devil..." is used to describe something so byzantine as to defy description by mortals, such as the federal budget, or a Madonna movie.  "Pride goeth..." is always trotted out in winter, and used to describe a video of some stuffy business type taking a pratfall on an icy sidewalk in some icy city.

Dalkowski

But I am here to report on a new addition to the Top 10 Overused Words.  I've heard it all week to describe the response to Hurricane Harvey, kids going back to school, batting against Steve Dalkowski, and finding really nice cilantro.

The word is "daunting," and here is what your Google says about it: 

daunt·ing

ˈdôn(t)iNG,ˈdän(t)iNG
adjective
seeming difficult to deal with in anticipation; intimidating.
"a daunting task"
synonyms: intimidating, formidable, disconcerting, unnerving, unsettling, dismaying; discouraging, disheartening, dispiriting, demoralizing; forbidding, ominous, awesome, frightening, fearsome; challenging, taxing, exacting
"the daunting task of raising five boys"

So don't let Amy Robach, Jenna Bush Hager and Charlie Rose beat you at the game. Grab a word and use it, use it, use it! That's not too daunting a task, is it?