I use it, but with much caution. There are many wonderful dictionaries that do discuss changing definitions of words, but I know of none available on-line for free.

going to be, going forward, the most common reference for the word.


The old linguistic puzzle was "Do words mean what it says in the dictionary or do they mean what people think they mean?"

Now it is, "Does a word mean what it says in scholarly dictionaries, or mean what dictionary.com says it means?"

Enormity traditionally means ‘the extreme scale or seriousness of something bad or morally wrong’, as in residents of the town were struggling to deal with the enormity of the crime. Today, however, a more neutral sense as a synonym for hugeness or immensity, as in he soon discovered the enormity of the task, is common. Some people regard this use as wrong, arguing that enormity in its original sense meant ‘a crime’ and should therefore continue to be used only of contexts in which a negative moral judgement is implied. Nevertheless, the sense is now broadly accepted in standard English, although it generally relates to something difficult, such as a task, challenge, or achievement.

Although the earliest use of fulsome (first recorded in the 13th century) was ‘generous or abundant’, this meaning is now regarded by some people as wrong. The correct meaning today is held to be ‘excessively complimentary or flattering’. However, the word is still often used in its original sense of ‘abundant’, especially in sentences such as she was fulsome in her praise for the people who organized it, and this use can give rise to ambiguity: for one speaker, fulsome praise may be a genuine compliment, whereas for others it will be interpreted as an insult.

It's there to harvest email addresses and such.

It stops being erroneous and starts being a new meaning when people us it.

A "turkey" could be a hamburger with avocados and acorns if that is what people mean when they say it.

Of course words are just symbols that mean what people use them to mean. But what people? How many people? In what contexts?

If everyone in Texas uses "turkey" to mean a hamburger with avocados and acorns then that is what turkey means in Texas.

But if only one person uses "turkey" to mean a hamburger with avocados and acorns he is going to have trouble ordering in restaurants.

The question is, how many people think X? At what point does the former error become so widespread that it is more meaningful than the original usage.

In other words,

If that were a breadbasket, then shoes would be near enormity.

How many languages do you speak? Communication is very difficult already. The only thing that makes it work is people want words to the same definition that other people use.

How do you know that your statement isn't going to be the first time those words were used with a new meaning that will become commonly accepted?

Fulsome - 1. Characterized by abundance, possessing or affording copious supply; abundant, plentiful, full.

With citations back to AD 1250.

The other definitions - nauseating, cloying, overdone, foul or loathsome - all have more recent citations than this first, and are all marked "obsolete". Save for:
7. Of language, style, behaviour, etc.: Offensive to good taste; esp. offending from excess or want of measure or from being ‘over-done’. Now chiefly used in reference to gross or excessive flattery, over-demonstrative affection, or the like.

the OED. I still have my multi-volume set. I also have the compact version, complete with magnifying glass. I mourn the death of real dictionaries. From time to time, I still pull out a volume of the OED and spend an evening opening it to random pages to read. I'm weird.

I assume you've read the book. If you haven't, place it at the top of "to read" list, you won't be disappointed.

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 02:15 AM - Edit history (1)

That definition is, I believe, marked as obselete, but it's interesting to know.

I kid. I like your concept of the ignoramus trap, even if fulsome turns out to not be the best example. (FWIW, I think the objectionable definition of enormity has been around since the 18th century, and was more common and accepted in the early-mid 19th century than it is now. It fell out of favor, but is now, as you point out, working its way back into common usage.)

In the OED2 the little dagger symbol means "obselete," and they list the meanings in historical order. The first several definitions offered are identified as obselete.

The non-obselete definitions are in line with how it is genrally used today.

6. Offensive to normal tastes or sensibilities; exciting aversion orrepugnance; disgusting, repulsive, odious. (Obs. except as in sense 7.)
b. Morally foul, filthy, obscene. Obs.

7. Of language, style, behaviour, etc.: Offensive to good taste;esp. offending from excess or want of measure or from being,over-done. Now chiefly used in reference to gross or excessive flattery, over-demonstrative affection, or the like.

Because, like it or not, it is an actual meaning of the word.

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 03:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Was.

Can I properly use fulsome to mean full in an article I am writing? To answer that question I consult the OED.

There is nothing in the OED that suggests I can. In fact, it says I should not.

So fulsome does not mean full in 2012. That is what the OED states.


Words do mean what they mean today. I agree with the evolving language argument. It does not follow, however, that language is anarchy. Since not everyone agrees, there must be a consensus to which we can refer. That consensus of where our evolving language is today has generally been considered to be what dictionaries say today.


My complaint is that dictionaries should not be forward-leaning drivers of linguistic evolution, agressively incorporating usage errors as correct. If a few clods misuse a term that does not mean that the dictionary must rush to accommodate their error. If all clods misuse a term then the language has really changed, given the great numbers involved. But why rush the process?

I'm sure you see the irony here... the evolving language argument would be hoisted on its own petard. If we rely on the OED for what a word meant in 1250 AD then why would we then have carte blanche to reject what the OED identifies as proper usage today?

A reporter uses fulsome to mean full in an article. His editor says, "this is incorrect. Did you not consult our style manual?" The reporter says, "I looked it up on dictionary.com, and a dictionary trumps an in-house style manual." The editor says, "Well, if you want to invoke authorities beyond our style manual, the OED trumps dictionary.com, and the OED says that is not proper usage."

Would the reporter persist, saying that it would have been proper usage in the middle ages?

Zounds!

as the "modern" construction.

At any rate, how can you plow ahead from your own error?

They've moved from being prescriptive to descriptive. Before the middle of the 20th century, most dictionaries were prescriptive, in that they wrote what the words meant and the expectation was that people would use them in that way. But...about the same time, some dictionaries made a move to become more descriptive. These dictionaries began to include definitions based as much on how words were being used as on how they should be used. Today, what printed dictionaries still are being published on paper are mostly descriptive. It's a bad trend, in my opinion, and one that accept genuine corruption of word meanings.

I hold no hope that this will change.

"Fulsome Prison Blues".

Most of us have no occasion to use words like "enormity" or "fulsome" in our daily conversations.

But I'd like my writing to appear a bit more intelligent than my speech.

That's why I keep a thesaurus and a copy of Strunk & White on the desk right next to my puter. If I were tempted to use one of those words I'd sure as hell look it up first.

that's a very informal term, don't you think?

It isn't in the thesaurus either.

OK you're correct. I guess my writing isn't always more intelligent than my speech.

But I still like the word.

Living languages do change. But, we should strive to have words mean what they mean and not change words to accommodate the lowest common denominator. The LCD can always check out the Urban Dictionary where people just make up words and phrases to mean whatever they want them to and also caters to creative people that define words in ways that are well creative. I like the solution of including a citation that a word is often used in correctly to mean X, but it really means Y. There is no reason to not point out a word is used incorrectly.

If improper usage has become so common that they can no longer avoid including it, they add (informal) after that meaning or usage, meaning 'crappy English'.

It used to have a positive connotation, meaning "the best" of whatever it was referring to. As in "elite athlete".

Now, it's a pejorative among some groups with a meaning of "haughty" or "snobbish".

We need to take our language back, along with the political system.

especially by the wing nuts. The word they are trying to use is 'elitist'...but as usual the wing nuts get it wrong.

In fact, "elitist" is the more pejorative term to them. But even that word didn't carry the negative meaning that it does today.

A poster said, the OED says X. Not having the OED before me, I said that was interesting and that I stood corrected.

Then I looked it up and found that the poster was incorrect, and that the definition being cited was something identified by the OED as NOT being proper contemporary usage.

The OED is, among other things, an exhaustive historical reference. It allows a person reading Chaucer to look up fulsome to see what Chaucer might have meant by it, which does not mean that Chaucerian English is correct today.

It tells us, if the book you are reading is very old the definition meant could be this, even though the word no longer means that.

Seriously... I don't even get the argument.

All of that aside, the Chait quote works with either sense of the term. You just seem to be missing the nuance.

I feel the same.

But the internet is changing language at a terrifyingly rapid rate and usage determines meaning.

Early internet protocol understood it was rude to correct mistakes. I no longer believe that. I know it's putting my thumb in the dike but my hope is that swift correction prevents codifying the mistake.

However. What is happening to our language is evolution. Which is a process of selecting mistakes that are useful. We wouldn't be humans without that process.

I HATE that we are losing our irregular verbs and nouns, for instance. I love the history behind them. But they make our language more difficult to learn.

You have all my sympathy in your frustration.

or suggesting its a something that can be associated more with repubs than Democrats is, in a word, dumb.

Here are some of the "dumb" people that have used "enormity" to refer to "largeness" rather than "great evil":

John Steinbeck. Paul Theroux. Barack Obama. And countless others. Some probably smarter and better writers than any of us.