It's AWESOME. It's AMAZING. It's cliche.

Maybe you hadn't noticed, but the word "amazing" is suffering from overexposure.

I blame Facebook. Status updates are full of amazing stuff -- amazing friends, husbands, movies, hamburgers. There's a lot of awesome going on, too.
It's enough to give a person superlative fatigue.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone that it's unnecessary to refer to new sandals as "fabulous." But if we're going to continue describing everything with superlatives, maybe we could at least change them up.

To that end, I suggest perusing Arthur Plotnik's "Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives" (Viva Editions; $15.95).

Plotnik's new book offers hundreds of superlatives neatly organized into chapters such as "Intense," "Great," "Sublime," "Physically Affecting" and "Trendy." Under "Intense," for instance, you'll find "dead-on," "dharma incarnate," "high-wire" and "Hegelian."

So next time you want to describe some really yummy frozen yogurt in your status update, consider calling it "slurp-worthy" or "plate-licking good." Or, my favorite: "Glad tidings for the gullet."