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Is someone able to explain how the overused word "awesome" means full of awe and awful means dreadful? In the distant past awful mean exactly that: full of awe, awe inspiring. And while we are on the topic, shouldn't loathsome mean some loathing? Is there a loathful? And why do we drive in parkways, yet park in driveways?

Actually awe connotes a holy fear, as an ancient man standing in awe before a tree struck by lightning. In Isaiah 6, the prophet has a vision of God and cries out, "Woe is me, for I am undone." The response of the finite to the infinite is often fear. From this arises the sense of taboo and mana. See Evelyn Underhill's great work, The Idea of the Holy.

Awesome is definitely overused and applied to things not awesome by any real definition of the word. It is almost as troublesome as unbelievable used in the place of amazing. Brian Williams of NBC news is the propagator of this error in word choice. Then there are the people who say literally when they mean figuratively.