"Chilling" Out

It is nearing December 31 and time to consider this year's "word." By that, I mean the word most overused in 2004 to the point of actually inducing nausea. I'm going to nominate, "chilling." Most often it's used by those who wish to lend some extra gravity to their immense displeasure at some some policy of the current administration as in, "There are elements in the patriot act that are no less than chilling." It's actually a pretty good word and more powerful than, say, "disturbing" conjuring up as it does a sense of far-reaching and overpowering dread. Powerful, that is for the first 300 hundres times we see it in print--then it loses steam. It's also overworked in another sense-- is everything we dislike or don't agree with really chilling? Is the failure of a city to pass a mandatory no-smoking regulation in restaurants really chilling? Is the recommendation that a book espousing homosexual marriage be removed from the mandatory reading list for the sixth grade actually chilling? I suppose it's just part of the continuing word inflation of our time but I'm still tired of it.