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It's one of my favorite Simpsons quotes. Wonderful little bit of linguistic hackery. They make up one word, embiggen, and just from the obvious root word of "b
by evil-olive 7y ago
It's one of my favorite Simpsons quotes. Wonderful little bit of linguistic hackery.
They make up one word, embiggen, and just from the obvious root word of "big" it's clear what it means. Doubly so when taken in context, "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."
Then they make up a second word, cromulent, and the meaning can be entirely inferred from context. Embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word. Acceptable, adequate, maybe a bit unorthodox but "good enough".
- tootie 7y agoAnd it's a pretty useful word. It's somewhere between "acceptable" and "plausible". It can kind of just mean whatever you need with a slight air of "I don't really know what I'm talking about, but don't worry it'll be fine."
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> they make up a second word, cromulent, and the meaning can be entirely inferred from context. There's nothing unusual about this. That's how people learn the meaning of every word. You're born knowing zero words; there's no alternative.