Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I know about the common usage of "decimate" but I'm not familiar with the corrupted use of "enormity". Please explain.
Barry
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"Corrupted" is a judgment call. The meanings of both words have expanded and shifted, as with words like "nice" and "silly", but to say the meanings have been "corrupted" is a moral judgment. Which is apt in this case, since "enormity" was once reserved for describing things considered to be enormously wicked, bad, immoral, etc. Whether the inevitability of linguistic and semantic shift is in itself an enormity of that sort, or simply enormous, is for each user to decide.