super

A friend, who was also once a Macquarie Dictionary editor, wrote to me with the observation that one new feature of English that has really taken off recently is to use super to mean ‘very’ as in:

 That’s a super interesting question!
a super funny guy/comedian/book/movie
That was a super good decision.
super helpful/lucky/terrible/dangerous etc.

 He went on to say: ‘Not that this adverbial sense is new. Some examples, super hungry, super tasty, super itchy, super boring seem more familiar to me. I think the change is that formerly this usage was more a child/teen thing, and it was also a part of Valspeak. Also, advertising seems to have used it, as in super tasty. But, these days the usage is spreading into the speech of perfectly urbanely speaking adults. It is losing its markedness, that is, it has become no longer marked for colloquial/youthful speech.

I found a list of common adjectives and started searching Trove for "super adj" examples.  I immediately lit upon "super-enjoyable" from 1920! But this is an example of super- (the prefix) not super (the adverb). Splitting hairs? I don’t think so. Clearly the modern use is a stand-alone version of the original prefix. And of course with a prefix, you can add it to noun or adjective, or even an adverb in jocular use.

Nowadays, it’s becoming super ubiquitous!’