monstrous

Wed Apr 20 14:47:39 UTC 2011

Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard a living human - on or off the
screen - use "monstrous" as an adv.

It's soooo lower-class 19th C.

HDAS, going way out on the limb of inclusiveness, has a single cite of
"monstrous" meaning "remarkable; 'immense'" : "Great. Monstrous. Really
talented cat."

The year was 1968 - when it was still hip to call dudes "cats."

JL

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: monstrous
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2:29 AM -0400 4/20/11, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >"Monstrous" is the Word of the Day in today's OED mailing. While most
> >lemmas are dated back to the 14th or 15th century, it is the other end
> >that grabbed my attention--a couple of expressions that are labeled
> >obsolete, archaic or rare. In particular, I looked at two, both
> >intensifiers, but one adjective and one adverb (see definitions and
> >quotes below, following the signature).
>
> My favorite cite, for the adjective, is a passage from the
> neo-Hegelian British philosopher Bernard Bosanquet's 1888 _Logic_ (p.
> 277) in which he takes issue with the neo-Hegelian German philosopher
> Christoph Sigwart.  Of his frenemy's view that 'every negation
> presupposes an affirmation, so "A is not B" presupposes the
> affirmation "A is B"', Bosanquet declares, 'I think it monstrous.  I
> do not believe that you must find an affirmative standing before you
> can deny.'
>
> It seems as though "monstrous" here just means 'very very mistaken'.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >This is a bit hard because it's not always clear if "monstrous" is
> >merely an intensifier or actually has something to do with monsters (or
> >horror). But, to me, it seems much more common than the OED descriptions
> >let on. Instead of looking for individual instances, which would be
> >nearly impossible with all the extraneous noise, I picked up likely
> >words that might be modified (intensified) by "monstrous", such as
> >hunger, crowd, deal, sale, etc., for nouns ("monstrous" adj.) and good,
> >bad, huge, large, rare, loud, for adjectives ("monstrous" adv.).
> >
> >I restricted the search to GB only with dates /after/ Jan 1, 1990. This
> >still includes a number of reprints of Mark Twain and Frank Baum
> >(monstrous big), Emil Zola (monstrous din), Beaumont & Fletcher and
> >Thomas Carlyle (monstrous loud), Jane Austen (monstrous deal), plus a
> >handful of other older material, but most are new publications. The
> >initial results included thousands of raw hits for each combination--in
> >fact, all numbered in the thousands, over 10000, in fact, for all but
> >"hunger" and "thirst". This seems odd--the expressions are not /that/
> >pervasive.
> >
> >It appears that sometime since the beginning of the year, Google changed
> >the search algorithm so that searching for "A B" and A-B no longer gives
> >the same results. In fact, only searching for "A-B" gives actual
> >occurrences of the combination A B (with or without a hyphen). The other
> >two include a large number of A and B occurring in proximity to each
> >other, but not exact combination.
> >
> >Accepting this, I reduced the number of hits for all of these down to
> >between 10 and 400 raw, depending on the modified word. This also
> >significantly increased the proportion of old-text reprints among the
> >results, but not so much as to make new publications "rare". Certainly,
> >the expressions don't appear obsolete or archaic.
> >
> >I am not certain about "crowd" as it likely falls under A. 5.a.:
> >
> >>5. a. Of unnaturally or extraordinarily large dimensions; gigantic,
> >>immense, enormous.
> >
> >Some of the others may also fall under 5.a., e.g., "monstrous big
> >football players", although here it's both an intensifier /and/ an
> >indication of dimensions--someone else would have to separate them.
> >There is the additional problem in that I am not sure whether
> >"monstrous" here is modifying "big" or "football players" along with
> >"big" (i.e., adverb vs. adjective--the latter is 5.a., but the former is
> >not).
> >
> >"Monstrous bad" may also fall under some of the other definitions,
> >depending on the noun that follows--for example, if the next word is
> >"lie" than it goes under 4.b.--along with "monstrous bastard" and
> >"monstrous evil", which is why I did not include them in the search (not
> >sure about "evil"--see "big" just above).
> >
> >>4. b. Outrageously wrong or absurd. Used esp. in expressing
> >>indignation, consternation, or contempt.
> >
> >But other combinations don't suffer from these detractors.
> >
> >I am sure, looking through general web search result will produce many
> >more instances (although, again, there would be a need to filter out
> >quotations from old texts). For example, "monstrous good time" is a
> >stock phrase among theater critics, so it regularly shows up in reviews
> >(and ads quoting reviews--7 hits since 2004). "Monstrous sale" gets only
> >one current hit in Google News, but "monstrous deal" gets 46 (since
> >1991--oddly enough, most describing trades for NHL players or in other
> >sports; "trade" adds another 21 hits, but half are for "monstrous trade
> >deficit", which is a "monstrous quality"). The problem does not appear
> >to be in finding real examples so much as separating them from noise.
> >Another popular one is "monstrous break". Whatever the case, none of the
> >"arch.", "obs.", "rare" or "regional" appear to apply (is ESPN
> >"regional"? NYPost? LATimes? what about newspapers in Salt Lake City,
> >Toronto and Pittsburgh showing the same expressions on different dates?)
> >
> >VS-)
> >
> >Here are the two definitions:
> >
> >>A. 6. Used as a colloquial intensifier: very great, excessive,
> >>'tremendous'. Now rare (U.S. regional). Cf. sense A. 5.
> >>1711 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 7 Feb. (1948) I. 182We have a monstrous
> >>deal of snow.
> >>1717 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. 29 May (1965) I. 361The Greeks have most
> >>monstrous taste in their pictures, which for more finery are allways
> >>drawn upon a gold Ground.
> >>1782 F. Burney Cecilia I. i. iii. 39After all this monstrous fatigue,
> >>I was forced to have my hair dressed by my own maid.
> >>1782 J. Wolcot in J. J. Rogers Opie & his Wks. (1878) 22West the
> >>famous painter, a monstrous favourite of George's.
> >>1825 W. Cobbett Rural Rides in Weekly Reg. 26 Nov. 548Here is a
> >>monstrous deal of vanity and egotism.
> >>1858 in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. (1983) lxx. 42It took her a monstrous
> >>while to get it.
> >>1929 Amer. Speech 5 127A person might be 'a great hand to make a poor
> >>mouth' (an expression of discouragement) or a 'monstrous worker'.
> >>
> >>B. adv.
> >>Used as an intensifier: exceedingly, excessively, very. Now arch. or
> >>regional. Cf. mighty adv.
> >>1569 E. Fenton tr. P. Boaistuau Certaine Secrete Wonders Nature f.
> >>82,He became so monstrous huge and fat, that he durst not shewe
> >>himself to the people, for feare of contempt.
> >>1600 Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream i. ii. 47Ile speake in a
> >>monstrous little voice.
> >>1655 in E. Nicholas Nicholas Papers (1892) II. 262,I cannot but feare
> >>he may doe this monstrous vnhappy act.
> >>1710 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 6 Dec. (1948) I. 114It is such monstrous
> >>rainy weather, that there is no doing with it.
> >>1782 F. Burney Cecilia I. i. v. 73She's a monstrous shocking dresser.
> >>1826 B. Disraeli Vivian Grey I. ii. xiv. 191The most monstrous clever
> >>young man.
> >>1840 F. Trollope Widow Married I. xii. 313,I think we shall be
> >>monstrous good friends.
> >>1884 'M. Twain' Adventures Huckleberry Finn xvi. 122Behind a monstrous
> >>long raft.
> >>1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. 386A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh!
> >>1972 P. O'Brian Post Captain iv. 80He mentioned some monstrous rare
> >>pippit or titmouse that lives here.
> >>1993 E. Bloom & L. Bloom Piozzi Lett. 401A Colewart so monstrous huge
> >>that five hundred men on horseback might stand in her shade.
> >
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