![]() ![]() Visitors to the Springfield-based dictionary publisher’s Web site picked “ginormous” as their favorite word that’s not in the dictionary in 2005, and Merriam-Webster editors have spotted it in countless newspaper and magazine articles since 2000. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous. “It might enjoy a fringe existence.”īut Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. “A new word that stands out and is ostentatious is going to sink like a lead balloon,” he said. One of those naysayers is Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society. It’s used by professional writers in mainstream publications. “There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like ‘ginormous,’ ” said John Morse, Merriam-Webster’s president. No matter how odd some of the words might seem, the dictionary editors say each has the promise of sticking around in the American vocabulary. ![]() If it sounds as though Merriam-Webster is dropping its buttoned-down image with too much talk of “smackdowns” (contests in entertainment wrestling) and “telenovelas” (Latin American soap operas), consider it also is adding “gray literature” (hard-to-get written material) and “microgreen” (a shoot of a standard salad plant). There’s “crunk,” a style of Southern rap music the abbreviated “DVR,” for digital video recorder and “IED,” shorthand for the improvised explosive devices that have become common in the war in Iraq. ![]() – It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster.Īlong with embracing the adjective that combines “gigantic” and “enormous,” the dictionary publishers also got into Bollywood, sudoku and speed dating.īut their interest in India’s motion picture industry, number puzzles and trendy ways to meet people was all meant for a higher cause: updating the company’s collegiate dictionary, which goes on sale this fall with about 100 newly added words.Īs always, the yearly list gives meaning to the latest lingo in pop culture, technology and current events. ![]() So give Sudoku puzzles a whirl, and soon you too will be exclaiming with delight: “This is so stupid! So, so stupid! I’d rather be reading the bridge column.SPRINGFIELD, Mass. Using this technique, I’ve cut my own daily solving time to mere minutes. Rather than starting over, an effective shortcut is to crumple the page into a tight ball and throw it at the dog. * Error correction: Occasionally you may reach a contradiction, which means you’ve made a logical error. Then the digit following the 0 must, by necessity, be a 9, as in the 1982 song. * The Tommy Tutone rule: If you encounter a row that reads Regardless, here are two tips to help get you started. Sudoku solvers have developed a number of tricks for solving puzzles more quickly, which is odd, because it’s not like they have to hurry up for a date later on. The answer is nothing, because it’s not a Sudoku puzzle - it’s my ex-girlfriend’s Social Security number. I’m not bitter at all that I can’t do them! The answer is, “because there’s a ‘4’ written inside that square.”Īt times, filling in Sudokus can seem like a form of magic. ![]()
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