Fifty-nine percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of enormity as a synonym for immensity in the sentence At that point the engineers sat down to design an entirely new viaduct, apparently undaunted by the enormity of their task.
This distinction between enormity and enormousness has not always existed historically, but nowadays many observe it. Writers who ignore the distinction, as in the enormity of the President's election victory or the enormity of her inheritance , may find that their words have cast unintended aspersions or evoked unexpected laughter. Email Print. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. Is it enormity or enormousness? Traditionally, only one of these words means "huge.
Traditionally, usage guides said that enormousness described something huge, and enormity described something overwhelmingly horrible. Yet, today, enormity is also regularly used to describe something of staggering hugeness. Some people call this an error and some people call it language change. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage says there is no basis for the distinction between the words, and they also note that the word enormousness has always been less popular than enormity.
I love words that sound similar, especially when they have completely different meanings. They are almost always an excellent opportunity for philosophical insight. I mentioned in the list of my favorite podcasts that I love listening to the Grammar Girl podcast.
Mignon always has such great, practical advice and clever, funny examples of word usage. Her January 5, , episode on using enormity vs. I thought these two similar-sounding words with completely different meanings could offer a little insight and practice into creating and building good times, or at least better bad times. In the controversy of enormity vs. Life is huge, so much bigger than any of us, bigger than all of us. Many even suggest there is life beyond our planet.
What is the best course to be taken to avoid so horrible a sin? Surely, even 1. To avoid even the first motions or occasions, and so lesse endangered to fall into the enormousnesse thereof. O horrible! At some point, everybody began using enormousness to refer to size, instead of evil, and the next thing you know Also, am I the last person on Earth to think that "enormity" does not mean "enormousness"? We have all been using the word 'enormity' incorrectly.
It does not mean enormousness but 'outrageous or heinous character; atrociousness'. It would seem that enormity is taking the same route that enormousness did, at least insofar as its semantic drift is concerned.
Furthermore, if the comments by the above members of Twitter are in fact correct, the newer meaning is beginning to supplant the older meaning.
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