Friday, August 21, 2009

What is this new word?

Off late, I have been hearing this word "humongous" quite often in conversations and whatever I read, but had no clue what it meant. Guess my vocabulary must be seriously outdated.

Anyway, it reminded me of another term that was quite a craze a few years back - "Paradigm Shift" . This was the favorite corporate jargon at that time and I wonder whether half of them actually knew what it meant. There was a hilarious reference to this by Anitha Nair in one of her articles in Sunday Express. Not exactly the same words, but the gist is here - "These days everyone is talking about this new thing called Paradigm. I have never been able to understand what it is, but one thing I know- it is always shifting"
:-D

(P.S. - If anyone is as ignorant as I am, humongous means "extremely large", "Huge ", "perhaps alteration of huge + monstrous" - courtesy Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

6 comments:

  1. I thought humungous was OK from the way it sounded. I did quite understand it. But I agree with Anita Nair on Paradigm!

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  2. that was a paradigm shift from your usual style to explain a humongously complicated word :O

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  3. Hey, Looks like Georgy does not watch BEN-10? Johann tells me the meaning of quite a bit of alien words!!!

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  4. Some people like to impress with humongous words. Whats wrong with enormous? As far as paradigm is concerned, hmm,the word shifted before I could grasp the meaning.

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  5. @sreeram - but of course!
    @rocksea :-D and congrats again!
    @jes - why didn't I think of it? next time i'll do just that
    @aparna - i know what you mean about paradigm :-)

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  6. Humongous I know but ummm ....finally I can ask what a paradim shift is without losing face;-D????

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