Coool maan

A friend of mine commented on how weird it was that his parents just didn't understand the idea of 'cool'. I cant comprehend that, 'cool' is my favourite thing. As far as I'm concerned
'cool' is an emotion, its the emotion. For a while I thought that 'cool' simply didn't exist 20 years ago, before that things were just nice, wonderful, good, excellent perhaps rad, or at most fantastic. None of these words have the kudos of cool, or the subtext. Now, as with everything its not that simple... It seems that 'cool' has been arround for quite a while slowly gathering attributes since the 1500s only becoming mainstream in th 1980's.

Take a look at this diagram of the history of 'cool'.

I had no idea that the surrealists used the word 'cool'. The word was adopted by the jazz crowd, pop artists, romantics, expresionists and the Hollywood film noir movemnent. There is definately a shared attribute of coolness between all these circles and no other word could be used in its place.

I for one am glad that the word is arround because it describes all my favourite things and without it I would often be lost for words.

Wikipedia entry on 'cool'