Not so long ago -- six or eight months, perhaps -- we heard a young man describe something as "ginormous." We were impressed. Although we had never heard the word, its meaning was obvious: gigantic plus enormous. How clever of this person, we thought, to coin such a fun, economical new way of saying really, really big.
Imagine our surprise, then, to hear ginormous popping up in another conversation just a few days later -- and then on a Weblog, and in a movie review, and in an online chat, until it seemed every other person under the age of 25 was using it. There could be no doubt: We were witnessing the birth of a new word, or, as the language people primly say, a neologism.
The suspicion was confirmed last week when Merriam-Webster, one of the world's leading English-language dictionary publishers, issued its 2005 list of Top 10 Favorite Words That Were Not in the Dictionary, based on submissions from thousands of visitors to the company's Web site. There it was, topping the list: "ginormous (adj.): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous." So, our acquaintance did not invent it, but someone, somewhere, clearly did, and it took root and bloomed, at least for this season.