[Ads-l] Antedating of "Humongous"

[Ben Zimmer]

Great find, Fred. It's always helpful to include a link -- here it is:

https://archive.org/details/1964529/page/n1/mode/1up?q=humongous

The previous earliest known cite from 1967 (as given in GDoS) was one that
I shared here back in 2005.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2005-April/048988.html

--bgz

On Sat, Oct 8, 2022 at 3:22 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> humongous (OED 1970, Green 1967)
>
> 1964 _The Colonnade_ (Woman's College of Georgia) 29 May 3/1 (Internet
> Archive)  Other students made wide detours to avoid the humiliation and
> fear of being chased and attached by the humongous numbers of bees in front
> of Atkinson.
>
> NOTE:  This citation is a little funky, in that it appears to be a parody
> issue with the heading "The Colomnude."  However, internal evidence
> indicates clearly that it was published in 1964 (for example, the issue has
> an advertisement for a movie that came out in 1964).
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>

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