Susan 馃悵 Rooks, The Grammar Goddess

5 years ago 路 1 min. reading time 路 0 路

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Wednesday Word of the Day: Embiggen

Wednesday Word of the Day: Embiggen

f725cdb9.jpgI wonder how many readers are wondering if I've lost my mind after seeing the headline of this Wednesday Word post ...

This past week I wrote a short post on things that matter to me, and one of my readers, Mark Blocker, made this comment:


A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man. Or in this case woman. Not that you are literally small in stature or spirit. Okay, I'll shut up now.

Beyond the fun way he wrote it, he used a word I'd never seen before anywhere, so of course I looked it up.

To my great surprise, I found out that it's real. It's in Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries, but it's considered to be informal and humorous speech:

Embiggen: to make bigger or more expansive

The word has an interesting history and was thought to have been created, along with two others, by the writers of The Simpsons TV show for a specific show featuring actor Donald Sutherland in 1996. Later it was learned that the word had been used in 1884 and subsequently in several scientific journals.

I don't know what the odds are of thinking you're creating a new word for a cartoon TV show series, only to find out it was real all along ... but somehow Mark Blocker stumbled across it and used it.

So thanks, Mark, for showing us a word 99.9% of us have never heard of before, using it correctly, and making me, at least, laugh over the whole affair.

Be warned, dear readers: Some day I may enjoy one of your comments enough to showcase it and you in a later post.

Are there other words you wonder about? Have you ever created one yourself? Share with us, please!

*****

As an editor / copy editor, I read what others write, I correct typos concerning punctuation and word usage (American style), and I help authors of most anything look and sound as smart as they are.聽

Check out my full profile for more, and thanks for reading!



Comments

John Rylance

5 years ago #10

#7
Yes I did mean peace, a spell checker blip. By the way they are all genuine.
#1
And what a wonderful way to help youngsters learn new words, @Bill King! Thanks so much for commenting!
#2
Run, Ken Boddie, run! Quickly! Away with you!
#4
Just love knowing that, Randall Burns! Thank you!
#3
Too funny, but expected from you, John Rylance! (And you did mean "aiming for peace," right?)
#5
Well, Phil Friedman, you got me with epeolatry, which I had to look up. Laughing, I am, and thank you!

Phil Friedman

5 years ago #4

This preoccupation with the embiggening of our respective vocabularies borders, I believe, on epeolatry, oh Goddess of Grammar. Cheers!

Randall Burns

5 years ago #3

It's so nice that your posts can embiggen my vocabulary Susan \ud83d\udc1d Rooks, the Grammar Goddess

John Rylance

5 years ago #2

This is a selection of words I found in a book by Gervase Phinn "Mangled English". Aleatory - depending on the throw of the dice Bibulos - addicted to alcohol Borborygmus - rumbling of gas in the intestine Ergophobia - dread of work Rachitic-suffering with rickets Eirenic - aiming for piece Have these got your eyeballs itching? Incidentally these words were ones given to him by Hilary Murphy, who is one of the setters of questions for Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Finally the above is a logorrhoea. ( an excessive flow of words)

Ken Boddie

5 years ago #1

I'd love to have a word affair with you, Susan, but I'm really short of time and so I must absquatulate.

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