[Lexicog] embiggen

[David Frank]

A bit of background information: This word "embiggen" sounds archaic, and in fact its use was attributed to a certain Jebediah Springfield, the founder of the town of Springfield, where the cartoon family the Simpsons live. The quote from him is "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." I think it is reasonable to guess that the word was coined by analogy with "embolden."

Another new word from the same episode is "cromulent" (see Michael Horlick's e-mail yesterday), as in "He's embiggened that role with his cromulent performance."

I first encountered this word on a news web site, and since I couldn't find it in printed dictionaries I found out more about it by digging around on the internet -- especially at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/embiggen. On the topic of neologisms in The Simpsons, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neologisms_on_The_Simpsons.

I didn't see the episode of The Simpsons where "embiggen" and "cromulent" were first used, and in fact I have never watched a whole episode of that show, but it helps to have a little background information about The Simpsons in order to put these creative uses of language into perspective.

-- David Frank
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Michael Nicholas 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 8:47 AM
  Subject: RE: [Lexicog] embiggen


  Dear Tim,
   Isn't there a certain tendency to put em instead of en in front of the word because it begins with B? embattle/embank/ emblemish etc.? So embolden and enlighten. In this case enlighten is  - of course - not to make a load less heavy, and  it was needed because it added a new meaning to lighten. I think embiggen is due to the em rather than en before  B and even so widen from wide etc. Ithink we have something on the lines of entrap/ensnare for trap/snare.(verbs). 

  Tim Gaved <tim_gaved at sil.org> escribió:
    Michael, 
    But note embolden - to make bolder, and enlighten.
    The first was probably the model, as "emboldens the heart" is a recognisable collocation, albeit infrequent or perhaps archaic. It generates a small number of hits in Google.
    Tim Gaved
    SIL Senegal
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