Donald Satz wrote:

>As I move further along into reviews of recordings, it increasingly
>interests me how we find adjectives and other terms to describe what we
>like and don't like.  I thought it might be fun to come with some terms
>and then apply their relative opposites.  If you like, please provide
>some of your own.

Astonishing:  Very nice, I liked it; a cut above what you usually hear.
Used chiefly by British critics, who use this adjective when they can't
find a full thesaurus (I complained about the annoying frequency of this
term -- found often in the BBC Music Magazine -- on the Mahler-List a
couple of years ago).

Mitch Friedfeld