ginormous

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:03 AM -0700 7/11/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>OED 1989 has "ginormous" back to 1948, with early exx. referring to WWII.
>
>   I first heard it about 35 years ago.
>
>   JL

But Mr. Fiske says it's new and it's silly and it's ill-defined
(apparently 'very large' is an ill definition), so the OED should
probably delete the entry.

LH

P.S.  Odd that an ill-defined word should have a great many synonyms,
but there you have it.

>
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>Robert Hartwell Fiske <Vocabula at AOL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Robert Hartwell Fiske
>Subject: ginormous
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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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>
>
>
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