I read a joke years ago in a book called 'A Treasury of Laughter', published in the 1940's, in which Father (as the male parent was once known to his children) admonished Junior for his declining vocabulary usage. 'Son', he said, 'there are two words that you have been using lately that I wish you would stop employing. One is 'swell' and the other is 'lousy'. 'Fine', said Junior, 'what are they?'
Jump forward seventy or eighty years, substitute 'surreal' and 'awesome' for the original culprits, and the joke lives on.