I had to use the word humongous today and was not sure of the spelling and it is not in my New Webster’s Dictionary dated with an update in 1981. If the word first appeared in 1967 why is it not in my Dictionary? What is the best Dictionary to buy that is updated and not missing words? I understand that at least one Dictionary this year added “Blog”, “Blogger” and “Blogging” is that true and which one was it please? Last question is my PC was built in 1999 yet it also did not have humongous in it’s Dictionary until I just now added it why is that?
Thank you very much for your time, RON, JAGUARDOG.
SDSTAFF Lileth replies:
Well, Dove, it took me about 5 seconds to find the word “humongous” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. It does help if you spell it correctly. Still, your spelling is not so far off that you couldn’t have found the word somewhere in the “H” section.
humongous also humungous (adjective)
[perhaps alteration of huge + monstrous]
First appeared circa 1967
Extremely large: HUGE
I believe the most complete dictionary is the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, but I could be wrong. As to why the word isn’t in your dictionary and wasn’t in your PC, it’s fairly simple. Not every dictionary has every word included, and neither does every PC. They have to balance completeness with space available (and size/weight for the physical dictionary as well). The fact that they both omitted this particular word is just coincidence; it’s likely there’s more than word that both left out.
I have the “Compact” version of the OED. Complete with magnifying glass. Does anyone have the “Non Compacted version?” Seems to me that only libraries would have one.
Curious in Carolina
Yes, the Real Thing is encyclopedia sized, and is mostly to be found in libraries. You can also get it on-line (though the subscription is rather pricy), or on a CD-ROM (which can be had for a reasonable discount, if you look hard enough).
They’re working on the 3[sup]rd[/sup] edition now. (It is worth noting that, as recently as the early 70’s, they did not think that a 2[sup]nd[/sup] edition would even be physically possible – but scanners and computers did the trick.) They have seriously considered not doing a print version of the 3[sup]rd[/sup] edition, simply because of the tremendous amount of paper required for each copy.
Try and type the word, hit enter and google will suggest what you meant.
As an example type in humongos get Did you mean: humongous
Click Humongous and in the upper right hand corner google will offer
Results 1 - 100 of about 927,000 for humongous [definition]. (0.10 seconds)
Click definition and get several definitions.
I have access to the online OED. And yep, the word’s in there.
blog, n.
Computing.
WEBLOG* n.
[1999 www.bradlands.com (weblog diary) 23 May, Cam points out lemonyellow.com and PeterMe decides the proper way to say ‘weblog’ is ‘wee’- blog’ (Tee-hee!).] 1999 P. MERHOLZ in peterme.com (weblog diary) 28 May, For those keeping score on blog commentary from outside the blog community. 1999 Scotsman (Nexis) 30 Aug., Many of the early 'blogs link to one another and have built quite a community of webloggers{em}the authors who maintain them. 2002 Salina Jrnl. 21 Apr. B6/3 Blogs…contain daily musings about news, dating, marriage, divorce, children, politics in the Middle East…or millions of other things or nothing at all.
Bear in mind that the OED also lists words such as “d’oh”, so a fairly normal word like blog isn’t that surprising.
My locak paper recently referred to a “humongous” traffic jam. When I reportrd this to a friend of mine with which I share unusual word usages, he said “the only proper use of that word is in a rhyme my 6 year old says–
Your butt is humongous
It smells like a fungus
But I don’t care
Cause you never share!”
Is “humongous” a real word? Well, do you have a rough idea what it means? Do the people who hear you use it share that rough idea? Then it’s a real word, whatever a dictionary says, even the OED.
“When I use a word,” said HUmpty Dumpty, "it means exactly what I intend it to mean, neither more nor less.
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make a word mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “who is to be master: me or the word?”
It made the Official Scrabble Players’ Dictionary, 4th edition. The OSPD’s sources, according to Word Freak, are Funk & Wagnalls Standard Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Colegiate Dictionary, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Webster’s New World Dictionary, and the Random House College Dictionary. So it’s presumably made it into one or more of those dictionaries.
A good (at least for those on the western side of the Atlantic) recent dictionary is the New Oxford American Dictionary 2nd ed. (2005). It is readable without a magnifying glass, has many good etymologies, and is of reasonable size. It does contain “blog” (both as a noun and a verb), as well as “humongous” and its variant spellings. It is also reasonably priced.
