Elevating intensifiers

America, don't wait until we have to pull intensifiers from the Gettysburg Address ("\o7altogether\f7 fitting") to relieve the shortage. Take these actions now: Go to the subcultures, like hip-hop, fo' example, with adjectives so hella blingy they don't need no intensi-whatzits, no'm'sayin'? "She's a \o7bottom \f7woman" croons the hero of "Hustle & Flow" of his favorite working girl. Yo, I'm down wid dat modifya, even if it's 40 years old and kinda nasty.

Let's welcome foreign intensifiers. Never mind that jackbooted language guardians discourage foreignisms (and intensifiers themselves). Why say "very" when you can cry "\o7molto\f7!" with a \o7molto piccante \f7gesture to drive it home?

Construct "Germanisms," or multiword modifiers. "Ross-Perot-scare-off-the-women-and-horses crazy," wrote columnist Maureen Dowd of Howard Dean's Iowa finale shriek.

Get inventive: Make newsy nouns into adjectives ("a \o7Dubai\f7 deal") or intensifying adverbs: ("Another \o7Dubai-ly \f7dumb decision.") Join paradoxical modifiers for oh-so-sarcastic effects: "Incandescently dimwitted legislation." Or go retro: Vintage intensifiers -- especially slang -- can be hauled back into fashion. Drop-dead gorgeous? Nah. "That woman is peachagulu, no-bum-for-looks gorgeous!"

Or you can turn the intensifier shortage to advantage. Almost every pumped-up modifier has a powerful, steroid-free alternative. "Livid" trumps "really mad," and "fetid" freshens "way smelly." OK, they're not always as much fun as gonzo intensifiers. But hard times call for hard measures -- ballistically, backbreakingly, brokebackingly, boy-is-this-intensified-now \o7hard. \f7