Is modern language a load of hyperbolics?

Someone recently said that modern society has turned into one giant marketing campaign.
OK, nobody has actually said that, but if they had said it then it's almost certain that what they'd have meant by this is precisely what journalist Finton O'Toole argues in today's edition of The Irish Times. In his opinion piece, which you can read here, O'Toole claims that hyperbole is "rampant" in our modern language. Using a rather topical metaphor he refers to this as "the inflation of language, the hyping-up of the ordinary into the extraordinary, the mundane into the epic".

What O'Toole is saying is that we seem to no longer talk about everyday things in neutral terms, but instead we feel the need to 'big everything up'. No longer do we talk about sporting fixtures... instead we see 'epic battles' of 'heroic proportions' between 'the legendary X' and the 'almighty power that is Y'. Whilst the kind of examples that I've just given are really quite harmless, O'Toole does make a point about some arguably (albeit unintentionally) more offensive uses of hyperbole. And although he concludes his argument with the deliberately ironic hyperbolic observation that the use of such language is "horrific, cataclysmic, disastrous and apocalyptic", O'Toole's real - and very serious - conclusion is that "this relentless hyperbole is corrosive". It seems to me that the logic of his argument cannot be contested: if we use all our superlatives up on everyday matters, there won't be any left to use when talking about those events that are truly 'awesome' or public figures who really are 'iconic'.

Far be it from me to try to influence your views, but I have to say that I don't entirely disagree with O'Toole's argument (thought I'd redress the balance with a bit of litotes there...).

What do you think?