ginormous

[Robert Hartwell Fiske]

Merriam-Webster's has added nearly one hundred new words to the 2006 update
of the eleventh edition of its Collegiate Dictionary. Among them is the  word
ginormous, a synonym of the equally loathsome, equally silly  humongous.
Combining "gigantic" and "enormous," ginormous is a word for which we
already have a great many synonyms. It's easy to create synonyms of readily
understandable concepts like largeness.
Better than new, ill-defined words for simple concepts like largeness would
be new words for less easily understood or less often encountered concepts
like  bravery or justice or truth. Having more synonyms of words such as these
may,  over time, affect people's behavior and increase the occurrence of
bravery, the  spread of justice, or the value of truth.
Ginormous is a silly slang term that does nothing to improve our
understanding of ourselves or our world. What's more, some people, simple though  the
concept of large should be, apparently have trouble understanding the word:
* Those looking through the new edition of Merriam-Webster's dictionary  will
have a ginormous list of new words to learn.
* It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster.
* She gave her mom, Kathy, a ginormous hug before the hotel  entrepreneurs
sped off to their Bel-Air mansion for some quality time together.
* But I have one ginormous point to add.

Ask Fiske
_www.askfiske.com_ (http://www.askfiske.com)



Robert Hartwell Fiske
Editor and Publisher
The Vocabula  Review
_www.vocabula.com_ (http://www.vocabula.com/)





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