Curmudgeons' Corner

Guestmudgeon Jim Ross is enormously tired of enormity

The misuse of enormity galls me!  Enormity does NOT mean "enormous". As Casey Stengel would say, "You can look it up."

Indeed, it refers to "extreme or monstrous wickedness".  Calling the tsunami disaster one of "enormity" (heard on NPR) is not exactly good usage.  The OED says:

3. Excess in magnitude; hugeness, vastness. Obs[olete].; recent examples might perh[aps] be found, but the use is now regarded as incorrect.

Have you heard or read similar or equally distressing usages?

Do tell us. 

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