The so-called Unacceptable American Words

As usual, I struggled to get up at five this morning.  My eyes heavy with sleepiness, I pecked at my breakfast. I set off for work at 6.00a.m and got caught in a bumper to bumper traffic crawl for thirty minutes. Upon arrival at school, I thought I could heave a sigh of relief but another annoying thing was lying in wait for me.

As soon as I entered the staffroom, I asked Kim Foong, a young temporary teacher if she had finished printing the certificates of the writing competition winners. She smacked her forehead and told me in an apologetic voice that she had forgotten about it.  Seeing how sorry she was, I did not have the heart to admonish her.  Instead I gave her more time to complete the job.

When I was about to remove my laptop from my bag and do some typing, Kim Foong came up to me and asked me to check if a student's answer to an examination question was correct. This is how the sentence goes, 'The Ponggol Festival is an awesome festival." Unsure of its validity as an answer, I advised her to refer it to the Panatia, the head of the language department.  After asking the woman, Kim Foong returned to her seat with a puzzled look. 

"What was the Panatia's opinion of the answer?" I asked.

"She told me that the word 'awesome' could not be used as a descriptive word," said Kim Foong, frowning. "All because it is an American word."

"What the heck is that?" I blurted out. "Awesome is a widely used English word in both England and America."

"Beats me, Mr. Lo," said the temporary teacher, shrugging.

I was beside myself with incredulity.  I wanted to reason with the Panatia but saw no point in doing it.  She is headstrong and it is not easy to outargue her.  Who gave her the idea that 'awesome' was an American word? 

A few months ago, I had used the word 'sine die' in writing a minute and in the same manner, she had told me not to use it due to its American origin. But it is not an American word. It is a borrowed word from French, meaning without a day specified for a future meeting. "We learn Cambridge English in Malaysia, " she had emphasized. "Therefore we should write in Cambridge English, not the error-prone American English." 

I don't understand, many good literary books are written by American writers and how come she had the cheek to denounce American English as bad. What evidence did she have in saying that the two words were unacceptable in writing?  At school, everyone respects her because she is an authority on anything to do with the English Language.  There is nothing I could have done to change her erroneous mindset.