There are many words we use everyday that aren't "real" words at all. But use a word long enough and it may just get added to the dictionary. That's what happened to one of my favorite words: Ginormous. (Yeah, I'm weird like that.) Americans entered the word as one of their favorites in an online contest held by Merriam-Webster.
The first time I ever heard the word was watching the movie Elf . Understandably, I imagined it was a word the writers had made up, combining gigantic and enormous . But, according to this article, ginormous has been around since 1948 as Royal Air Force and Royal Navy slang during World War II. It's already included in the Oxford dictionary.
But regardless of it's origin, I'm sure it will now be used even more often. Some may snub their nose at the word, but they can no longer deny its validity.
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