Humongous vs. Gargantuan

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Chris Turman. I live in Allen, Texas.

Hi, Chris. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Chris.

How can we help?

Thank you.

Well, I hate to admit how old I am, but I graduated in 76. It was probably around 75, about 37 years ago.

Me and an acquaintance of mine at a high school were talking about something. I can’t really remember what it was, if it was a hole in the ground or a pumpkin or something like that.

Well, we had a little argument about what word is larger. One of us said humongous, and the other one said gargantuan. And pretty much for the last 37 years, we really haven’t agreed to disagree. We’ve just disagreed.

So my real question was, which one of those two words is larger? Which is larger, gargantuan or humongous?

You mean which refers to something that’s larger?

Exactly.

Is a humongous rock bigger or smaller than a gargantuan rock?

Exactly.

Exactly.

You’ve been arguing about this for three and a half decades?

No, 3.7 decades.

Well, I can use fractions. I was educated in a different era.

Wow. Okay. What’s on the line here?

Surely at this point there’s an accumulation of debt and promises. A gargantuan amount.

Yes, right? Or maybe a humongous amount of debt. Something on the line. There’s got to be something.

He’s going to make you clean his pool for a year or something like that, right?

Well, like I said, there’s going to be either a humongous or gargantuan piece of humble pie that’s going to have to be eaten.

Wow, humble pie. We eat a lot of that around here. It’s quite yummy.

The real argument is which one of those two words are larger, and I don’t want to influence your decision. But there’s a lexicographer down here in Dallas named Brian Garner.

Oh, yeah. We love Brian. He’s great. Good stuff.

I figured you guys would know him.

Sure. Garner’s Modern American Usage.

That’s right. Great stuff. Black’s Law Dictionary. He’s a very brilliant man. He’s a gargantuan figure in the language room. He has a humongous intellect.

You guys are toying with me.

That’s right. It turns out he has a Twitter account, and I was able to tweet him with the same question.

Okay. But I don’t want to influence you guys.

Oh. You just want to pressure us.

He has a great book. You guys have a radio show, so I’m not sure. I think you outrank him.

I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re different classes of experts. How about that?

Okay. So what did he say?

He’s not going to tell us.

Well, I don’t want to influence your grant. I’m going to call up his Twitter account here. My acquaintance will say I’ve unduly influenced you guys, and then it’ll just mess up the whole thing.

Okay. Well, I think I’m going to go out on a limb. I’m going to go with gargantuan. It just sounds monstrous, and I know that it’s a much older word, so it’s got a much more august history. It seems much bigger and more solid to me than humongous, which is much more recent. It’s only the last half of the 20th century. I know that much.

Humongous hadn’t been around that long when you all were first arguing about it in school. So I’m going to, it almost sounds like something mythically large.

What about you, Grant?

Oh, it’s a good question. I think I would go with gargantuan as well.

Would you?

For very similar reasons. But I actually would probably just use titanic if I wanted to be even larger.

Well, I was thinking about that too. Because the Titans were bigger than Gargantua.

Yeah, Gargantua was Rabelais, and he was different sizes at different times.

Right, but even at his largest, the Titans were much larger, right?

Yeah, but so we’re developing a hierarchy here. But really what we have to do here, to be completely honest, Chris, what we have to do is we really need to do a whole rainbow spectrum of all the words for big or large and get people to figure out where on the spectrum they would put them, right?

Is it qualitative or quantitative? You know, in other words, if it’s a magnitude 10 gargantuan versus a magnitude 9 humongous, then it’s 10 times bigger. Or is it just how you feel? Like, you know, well, I don’t know. I kind of feel like humongous is bigger than gargantuan.

Some of it has to do with what sounds better. Does it fit well with the other sounds that I’m actually issuing from my mouth as I’m speaking? So sometimes our word choice has nothing really to do with the meaning so much as it does, oh, this word, it’s a humongous house. Sounds better than a gargantuan house.

Yeah, that’s a little scary. I wouldn’t want to live in a gargantuan house. It’s a gargantuan garage because there’s an alliteration there and other things are happening. Sometimes the word choice has nothing to do with the actual, you know, it’s 10% bigger.

Well, now, Chris, you have to tell us, where did you come down in the gargantuan versus humongous debate?

Well, I have to admit, you guys will probably be surprised, but I actually agreed with Brian Garner.

Yes. What did he say?

Gargantuan.

Oh, there we go. That’s four votes.

Okay. I’m telling you, I think it’s settled. Your friend needs to make a big, gigantic, humble pie. Enormous. Ginormous. Titanic. Titanic, even.

Chris, this has been gargantuan fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your time. I love your show, too.

We really appreciate you taking the time to explain exactly how your friend is wrong.

Hey, I have a lot more time for that if you want.

We’ll do it offline.

Thanks, Chris. Take care.

Bye, Chris.

Bye-bye.

And we should say that if you’ve got a dispute, you can come to us. We’ll help you settle at 877-929-9673 or email us, words@waywordradio.org.