What the heck are you talking about?

The Wall Street Journal isn't exactly what most people would consider a 'hip' read.

All those charts and numbers are mind-numbing. And the main color it uses on its front page looks like hemp or, perhaps, baby-poo. No magenta or kelly green or fire engine red on that newspaper.

And photography is virtually non-existent. People faces, for example, are gray-dot outlines of photographs.

But being rich is always hip, just like in that Billy Joel song that is really old now (not to me --having been born in the 1960s -- but to people who are only in their teens or early 20s):

"Don't you know about the new fashion honey?

All you need are looks and a whole lotta money."

It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways

It's still rock and roll to me

Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound

Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me"

I heard the song while shopping at Macy's last week. It was the store muzak. I never thought I'd ever shop at Macy's, somewhere so expensive and uncool.

Sheesh, I heard Elvis Costello's "Alison" playing at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. I might be wrong, but after saying she's loose, pathetic and not very smart, the singer says, "My aim is true."

I think it means that he's threatening to shoot her, not do right by her as many people believe as they shop and merrily hum along.

The theme of a story in the boring business paper caught my attention. It was in reference to cultural change -- such as what's hip and what's not -- and primarily focused on the amelioration of words.

"It was so funny! She was walking down the street as if she was so awesome, and then her underwear fell to ankles!"

"Shut up!"

"Really! She just left them there, right on the sidewalk."

"Shut up!"

"Yeah, your mom is really something!"

"Shut up!"

Yes, the phrase "shut up!" has become like "No way!" and "Go on!" You just have to say it differently than you would when telling your ingrate spouse to shut his -- or her -- pie hole. You know, the rude way it was used at the end of the dialog above.

Unless you're mad at your mother, then you probably mean it in the other way. The new way. Or is it being used the rude way?

Yes, it's very confusing. And if this is the first you've heard of it, you might need to get out more. A staid Wall Street Journal reporter found out about it before you did.

Unless it's related to money, these reporters are the last to know about anything. In this case, the expression is being used in a commercial, which means some goofy Madison Avenue advertising exec sees the saying as a way to get attention and, of course, make money for his or her client.

The Wall Street Journal story went on to explain that editors of the Oxford Dictionary are thinking of adding this second usage of "Shut up!" to their next edition. It then described the process of amelioration of words as a linguistic phenomenon, "whereby a word or phrase loses its negative associations over time."

This has occurred often in the English language, the story continued, citing such words as "bad" and "dope," now also meaning "good" and "great," respectively.

The perennial slang word "cool," according to Webster's New World Dictionary, has numerous definitions: moderately cold; not excited; showing dislike or indifference; calmly bold. It's slang, however, is ameliorated. It has gone from meaning "dispassionate" to "very good."

Or did it go from "very good," to "dispassionate," then back to "very good?"

I'm a little too young to know this for sure. There were no former hippies around to ask as I wrote this. They were off doing something cool. Real cool, man.

I surfed the Web and found a few more ameliorated words. Though I've heard a lot of them used in their new way, these descriptions come from The Online Slang Dictionary. The more traditional explanations come from Webster's New World and me.

dank E adj E 1. very good, excellent; cool.

Webster's: Disagreeably damp.

filthy E adj E 1. very good, excellent; cool, awesome. "Those shoes are filthy!"

Webster's: Foul dirt. "Those shoes are filthy!"

gnarly E adj E 1. very good, excellent; cool. "That trick on your skateboard was gnarly!" E 2. used to describe something that looks painful or dangerous. "That was a gnarly car wreck." E 3. gross, disgusting. "Check out that gnarly old homeless dude."

Webster's: No definition listed yet. The slang, however, seems to cover all of the bases -- good and bad.

sick adj Generic positive: great, awesome, wonderful, perfect, cool, attractive, nice. "Kristy, your outfit tonight looks sick!"

Webster's: Suffering from a disease. Deeply disturbed. "Kristy, your mind tonight looks sick!"

Terri Harber works on the Nevada Appeal's news desk.