The Ethos of Cool vs. the Ethos of Chill
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Although both cool and chill function lexically as multiple parts of
speech, in everyday parlance cool literally speaks to a wider range of social
protocols. It serves as a noun (“Don’t lose your cool”); an adjective (“That’s a
very cool idea”); and as a verb (“Cool it”). Chill, on the other hand, functions
almost exclusively as a verb or verbal: “Chill out,” “We were just chilling”). This
distinction is significant. As a lexical expression of thought and feeling, cool
constitutes—or constituted—a three-dimensional cultural dispensation; in
contrast, chill’s cultural mandate consists of one, or at best two dimensions. As a
transitive verb, moreover (“cool it”), cool signifies a form of action; “chill,” one
of //faction, collective or otherwise. And while the “it