How cool is this?

The word `` cool'' is still, well, cool.

By all the standards of slang expressions, this word should long ago have joined `` boss,'' `` outa sight'' and `` groovy'' on the ash heap of pop culture.

And using it around a group of young people should be as risky as going hunting with Dick Cheney.

(In all fairness, the word `` groovy'' still has some currency, but only when said with extreme irony, such as that exclusively available to a 13-year-old. Or unless you are an actual member of the 1960s British rock group the Troggs, who used it in their groundbreaking -- and by `` groundbreaking'' here I mean `` only'' -- hit record, `` Wild Thing.'' OK, technically they tried to use the word `` groovy'' to rhyme with `` Wild Thing'' and `` everything,'' so there are grounds to believe that they were in no condition during the recording session -- reportedly an entire 10 minutes, including the time it took to tune up and order out for pizza and Oreos -- to actually know they were using the word, `` groovy.'' ) But according to a recent Associated Press story, as published in the Sunday Sun Chronicle, the word `` cool'' has escaped this fate.

`` Cool is certainly a charter member for the slang hall of fame,'' says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of popular culture. `` Cool just sits back and keeps getting used generation after generation and lets the whole history of the language roll off its back.''

According to Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley, the word should have faded away at the end of the 1950s. Instead, it was adopted and redefined by hippies, followed by surfers, rappers and techno-geeks. `` Click here for cool stuff,'' Web sites say.

Of course, not everyone who uses `` cool'' necessarily IS cool. At one time, nothing defined cool better than the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band, the Rolling Stones. Those of us who remember them in their heyday, (the late Jurrasic Period), can still recall the naughty thrill of some of their lyrics -- which, apparently are still way too shocking for mainstream America.

Watching Mick and the boys strut their stuff at the Super Bowl halftime show, however, did illustrate a couple of things.

Mick Jagger seems to show few ill effects from the revolutionary medical procedure that removed all the bones from his body. (Ditto for Keith Richards for the procedure that has -- well -- kept him breathing )

As my colleague Jamie Merolla pointed out the next day in the newsroom: `` High definition TV is not Mick Jagger's friend.''

But most of all, it showed us that there may be a time to stop being cool, or even trying. This is not going to be easy for many of us who have fought the onset of fogy-hood by refusing to give up the last remnants of cool, as tattered as our jeans (even if they now come in a `` relaxed fit.'' )

Or maybe we can just chill out.

TOM REILLY is a Sun Chronicle news editor. He can be reached at 508-236-0332 or at treilly(at)thesunchronicle.com, if you're cool with that.