Obama: Let the Fun-Making Begin!

During his first press ring-kissing conference, BO said he recognizes the "enormity" of what they are about to do to the economy. He uses that word but I don't think it means what he thinks it means.

I do think however that he was telling the truth, albeit unintentionally.

Lifting from dictionary.com's entry for enormity, here is a pertinent part of the comments from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's Usage Panel.*

"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."

He also said there had to be "...a international effort"... [sic] to prevent Iran having t3h b0mb. We were listening at work, and I said "AN" and my cubicle buddy said "AN, an".

This has the potential to be a fun few years.

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*The AHD is the only dictionary serious English speakers should use. It is the best, and put together by people who care deeply about the language.