“Ginormous”入選新版《韋氏詞典》
New dictionary includes 'ginormous'
The word 'ginormous' is framed by fingers after being added to a draft copy of the upcoming Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, in Springfield, Mass., Tuesday, July 3, 2007.
It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster. Along with embracing the adjective that combines "gigantic" and "enormous," the dictionary publishers also got into Bollywood, sudoku and speed dating.
But 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.
As always, the yearly list gives meaning to the latest lingo in pop culture, technology and current events.
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.
"There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like `ginormous,'" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. "But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power."
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.
"A new word that stands out and is ostentatious is going to sink like a lead balloon," he said.
But Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous.
Merriam-Webster editors have spotted it in countless newspaper and magazine articles since 2000.
That's essentially the criteria for making it into the collegiate dictionary - if a word shows up often enough in mainstream writing, the editors consider defining it.
對於《韋氏詞典》的詞語專家們來說，今年可是個“大”年頭。除了形容詞gigantic與enormous的合成詞ginormous（特大的；甭提有多大）外，Bollywood（寶萊塢）、sudoku（“數獨”九宮格遊戲）和speed dating（速配）也被收入詞典。
包括這幾個詞在內的約100個新增詞語都被收入將於今年秋天出版的新版《韋氏詞典》。
與往常一樣，《韋氏詞典》今年收入的詞彙也是流行文化、技術和時事領域裏出現的新詞。
其中包括：crunk（“曠課樂”；美國南部的說唱樂風）、DVR（digital video recorder的縮寫；數碼錄像機）、IED （Improvised Explosive Devices；“路邊炸彈”，一種臨時爆炸裝置，在伊戰中很常見）。
《韋氏詞典》總裁約翰·莫斯說：“語言學界的保守人士可能會看不起如ginormous這樣的詞。但它已經成爲我們語言中的一部分了。職業作家在主流出版物上發表的文章中都會用到它。它顯然是有後勁的。”
伊利諾斯州傑克遜維爾的麥克默雷學院英語系教授、美國方言學會的執行會長阿蘭·梅特考爾夫就是其中一位反對者。
他說：“華而不實的詞終究成不了‘大器’。”
《韋氏詞典》則將ginormous一詞追溯至1948年，當時這個詞出現在英國的一個軍事詞典中。而在過去幾年中，這個詞的使用也堪稱“ginormous”。
從2000年開始，《韋氏詞典》的編輯們就在很多報紙和雜誌的文章中發現了這個詞。
這也是《韋氏詞典》選錄新詞的標準，如果一個詞在主流文章中經常出現，那麼編輯們就會考慮將其收入詞典。
