M-W and "ginormous" (again)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Last May, Merriam-Webster announced that "ginormous" was the winner of
a survey for "favorite word not in the dictionary." Now the word comes
up again in M-W's online newsletter:

http://www.word.com/collegiate/archives/2006/01/from_the_mail_s_6.html#ginormous

It's quite odd that they claim that "'ginormous' first appeared in
edited prose in an article in the Economist in October of 1977."
What's the matter with the OED2 cites from 1948, 1962, 1970, and 1976?
The first two are glossarial, so they might not count as "edited
prose," but the later ones look unremarkable to me. And a quick check
on Newspaperarchive finds the word in an article from 1951:

-----
1951 _Fitchburg (Mass.) Sentinel_ 9 May 6/5 Agar had a new adjective
to describe the size of his operations."They're ginormous!" he said.
-----

Or does that not count as "edited prose" because it's quoted speech?

Also, I found this part amusing ...

"'Ginormous' spread to periodicals from Ireland, Scotland, and New
Zealand ... Since then, ginormous has appeared in the Washington Post,
Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, and other periodicals from around the
U.S. as well as in writing from Malaysia, Zimbabwe, and other
countries. The use of ginormous is certainly spreading, and if it
continues to do so, it may well be added to Merriam-Webster's
dictionaries."

I guess M-W will allow it in just as soon as it spreads to Burkina
Faso and Bhutan!


--Ben Zimmer

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