Hey look, it's a supermoon! Supermoon? More like every moon we ever see.

I'm fed up with the things. In the last two months guess how many supermoons we have had? Two!

I've discovered in researching this that there is such a thing as a 'super new moon' as well.

How many of them have we had this year? Three so far. That's not super. By my reckoning, that's what we should probably call a 'moon'.

It feels as though astronomy has become jealous of the necessarily hyperbolic language of meteorologists.

When every storm is record breaking, every month the hottest, wettest, driest since… somewhen, the weather is always hitting the headlines.

Pity the poor star-gazers, with celestial phenomena safe from the ravages of climate change, they are in danger of being eclipsed.  

I just about remember when the Sandown shop next to my best friend's house was converted into a supermarket - the only one in the town.

This was something we had only ever seen on television, usually in those far-off fantasy lands America or London. It was a sensation.

For other good reads from the County Press, click here

Fifty years on, the term 'supermarket' can describe the most meagre of cornershops.

Actual large shops have to use the word 'superstore' to distinguish themselves from the hoi polloi.

This dilution of meaning is what happens when you throw the prefix 'super' around too liberally.  

Cast your mind back to the campaign for the last general election.

Older readers may recall the Conservative party which was involved in it.

When the scale of their likely loss was such that even they could no longer evade it; one thing they were very keen to warn voters about was the dangers of a government with a 'supermajority'.

But whatever is a supermajority? It turns out that, in this country, it isn't anything at all.

In the USA, it has some legal meaning in the democratic process that I'm too indifferent to look up.

But in the United Kingdom - nothing.

A majority is either a majority or it isn't.

Well, we know how that turned out for the Conservatives.

And whilst I am not suggesting this was the only factor that influenced the outcome of the ballot, let me offer the suggestion that calling things 'super' when they are not can be a hazardous practice.   

So can't we just have a normal moon again?

Every month I'm feeling a huge burst of FOMO as everyone on my feeds is camped out in the West Wight with £5,000-worth of camera equipment, capturing once-in-a-lifetime shots of some suitable monument in front of a moon looking five per cent larger than it did last month.

There must be quite the scrum around sites overlooking The Pepperpot on those nights.

Hordes of peevish photographers on stepladders, reaching for the moon.

At least they don't need to ask it to say 'cheese'.   

So this is my simple plea: dial down the superlatives.

When everything's super, nothing is super. All I'm asking for is the moon.