RAD

I noticed I say the term "rad" a lot when I like something. I thought to myself this morning, am I really using the word in the right context? Does slang supersede the actual meaning? Do I really debate with myself about such trivial things like word usage?

Rad is short for radical which I know as being defined as something atypical. Like a radical idea or a person with totally different or even "crazy" point of view. So I delved into online definition resources. I started with Dictionary.com which defines it as follows. Oh and I added my own commentary of course.

rad·i·cal [rad-i-kuhl] –adjective
1. of or going to the root or origin; fundamental: a radical difference. (Different, check.)
2. thoroughgoing or extreme, esp. as regards change from accepted or traditional forms: a radical change in the policy of a company. (Way better.)
3. favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms: radical ideas; radical and anarchistic ideologues. (Hell yes!)
4. forming a basis or foundation. (Boring.)
5. existing inherently in a thing or person: radical defects of character. (interesting)
6. Mathematics . (Math = boring)
  a. pertaining to or forming a root.
  b. denoting or pertaining to the radical sign.
  c. irrational ( def. 5b ) .
7. Grammar . of or pertaining to a root. (Snooze fest.)
8. Botany . of or arising from the root or the base of the stem. (Who determined it was going to be used for this!? I revoke this meaning.)
–noun
9. a person who holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles; extremist. (Back to the awesome definition!)
10. a person who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods. (Repeat from above… but still a win.)
11. Mathematics . (Oh crap not again.)
  a. a quantity expressed as a root of another quantity.
  b. the set of elements of a ring, some power of which is contained in a given ideal.
  c. radical sign.
12. Chemistry . (Great, now for mathematics comparably boring cousin... Chemistry)
  a. group ( def. 3 ) .
  b. free radical.
13. Grammar . root ( def. 11 ) . (This word has far too many definition entries.)
14. (in Chinese writing) one of 214 ideographic elements used in combination with phonetics to form thousands of different characters. (WTF! That was out of left field.)

Now here's the fun one. Urbandictionary.com's first entry says:

An abbreviation of 'radical'--a term made popular by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (I love TMNT!) Still primarily used by people on the West Coast who find words like 'cool', 'awesome', and 'tight' to be tired and overused; 'rad' is generally considered to be a much higher praise than the aforementioned superlatives. Also used as a general expression of awe.
"Those are some rad shoes."
"Oh, RAD."

How informative! After that enlightening lesson, I think I will continue to slide in rad when I like something as often as possible. Now that I also know it's endorsed by the Ninja Turtles, West Coast nonconformists and it stands for anarchistic ideologues, I think I might have found a new favorite word. How dope is that! Dope... hmmm. The definition of dope is...

-c

p.s. I told you this blog would be random and sometimes fairly pointless!