I was meeting with a coworker this morning and used the word "gargantuous." He swore it didn't exist and looked it up online at Merriam-Webster Dictionary. He was right, it didn't appear. But I swore I thought it was a word. He suggested I give them a piece of my mind. Well, he wrote this email to them on my behalf:

I have decided you have a word missing from your dictionary. The new word is "Gargantuous" This is similar to gargantuan. The definition is anything that is larger than colossal or large. Thank you for your time.

This is the response I got:

Dear Divine Marcelo:

Thank you for your suggestion of adding "gargantuous" to the dictionary. To be entered in a Merriam-Webster dictionary, a word must appear in professionally written or edited prose from a variety of sources over a substantial period of time. Editors at Merriam-Webster spend part of every day reading a broad range of books and periodicals, looking for new words and new uses of familiar words. The information we gather is added to our citation files, which have over 15.7 million examples of words used in context. We don't have any citations for "gargantuous" in our files, so there isn't enough evidence to support including it in the dictionary at this time. However, it is certainly a word we will be watching for.

You might be interested to know that "gargantuous" did appear a few times in LexisNexis, a database of periodicals from around the world. Here are a few examples:

-"The gulf between Divisions I and II took on gargantuous proportions," Southern Reporter, February 17, 2005

-"Lawry's is a gargantuous and quite stunning mass dining room," New Times Los Angeles, September 20, 2001

-"It's absolutely thrilling to see the images of dozens of rhinos and elephants stampeding through the center of a New England town and gargantuous vines growing literally out of the woodwork entwining themselves around anything and anyone," The Patriot Ledger, December 15, 1995

"Gargantuous" seems to have been around since at least 1995, and if we find more citations, it may someday be added to the dictionary. (For more information on how new words are entered in the dictionary, please visit http://merriam-webster.com/help/faq/words_in.htm). In the meantime, you might consider entering "gargantuous" in the Open Dictionary at http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/. The Open Dictionary gives users the opportunity to share new words that are not in standard dictionaries.

Sincerely yours,

Anne Miller
Editorial Assistant
Merriam-Webster, Inc.
47 Federal Street
Springfield, MA 01102

Too funny...

Happy Friday =)