Sunglasses Before Dark
  • Joshua
    February 27, 2010

    I actually hate how we’ve changed the meaning of the word “cool.” What does our interpretation really mean anyway? It is an entirely ambiguous term, with brief definitive notions based on 70’s nostalgia for an invented 50’s. At least the real meaning means something. Cool: low in temperature.

  • Jason
    July 9, 2010

    Words change, I’m cool with that.

  • Steve Roberts
    August 17, 2010

    Cool has been remarkably resistant to change. I think it is starting to happen though. Slowly, unlike most other words of the popular culture zeitgeist.

    I don’t know what zeitgeist means.

  • Henry
    October 20, 2010

    If cool literally means cold, then does being cool with something mean you’re actually indifferent towards it, contrary to popular belief?

  • 1SpacyHammond
    February 2, 2011

    ‘Round about Jane Austen’s time, ‘cool’in a social context meant emotionally withdrawn – as in “freezing someone out.” The next evolution involved people who were or appeared to be ‘above it all’ and remained calm and cool in all situations. “I’m cool with that” would be a throwback to this meaning. If i’m cool with it, it doesn’t make my blood boil. Since people who remained cool under pressure were often charismatic, especially if they were “cool”-indifferent to social pressure, “cool” gradually became linked with the unmoved mover – the untouchable object of desire. And from there to objects of desire in general.

    Much simpler to use the word nifty.

  • Antsan
    November 9, 2011

    “Zeitgeist” means “spirit of the time”

  • Golux
    September 22, 2013

    If you have to argue about what’s “cool”, you probably aren’t.

  • betzy
    January 28, 2015

    In the current culture of irony, cool does mean indifferent

  • greg
    January 24, 2017

    It isn’t cool to be cool. It’s cool to be not cool.

    But when I said that, I got a rather cool reception from the people who think that being cool is cool.

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