Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Word of the Week: Large

It's been at least 15 years since I've been able to use the word "large" in print without feeling like I'm committing a capital offence.
The trauma of being large-less for one and a half decades can be laid at the door of Paul Murray, larger-than-life (sorry, bigger-than-life) former editor of The West Australian, now one of its columnists.
Mooner was such a big fan of the word big he sent a memo to all editorial staff banning "large" from the paper's pages.
At the time I was editor of the YOU lift-out (now called U.), which included food stories and recipes. I had to get a special dispensation to use large in the lists of ingredients because "2 big brown onions, sliced" just didn't sound right.
In later years I joined Large Anonymous and managed to overcome my fear of unacceptable synonyms. These days I find I can write it quite easily. So I will. Large, large, large, large, large.

4 comments:

Bilby P. Dalgyte said...

This wasn't a very large blog entry (maybe increase the size of the font? :P)

Well congratulations on overcoming you're fear of unnaceptable synonyms. I have yet to overcome my fear of using the correct spelling of "Bawoons". (Bawoons!)

Michele said...

And why are you at large at this time of day? Shouldn't you be in school or something? I don't believe for a minute that you're 709 :)

Bilby P. Dalgyte said...

Haha yes well I got bored while researching Brechtian Theatre in Drama and I can't help but check if anyone's posted a blog entry/commented on mine so yes... I was at school thanks for noticing :)

Haha I have to tell you the story of why I'm 709 sometime then. (You'd be surprised how LARGE the percentage of the population who don't think I'm 709...)

Bilby P. Dalgyte said...

Speaking of telling you the story of my why I'm 709 (now 710! woo!) it's posted on my blog under the entry entitled "The Secret of My Age" (written by me) which should be the most recent one at the moment (and will be for at least a week.) so if you feel like u need an explanation then that's the place to be (because wikipedia hasn't caught onto realising how important I am and have yet to write an article on my age) if you don't need an explanation then Starbucks is the place to be... because they have coffee. I don't know why starbucks should be the place to be (but they're better than Gloria Jeans) so sit back and enjoy some good coffee.

Have a nice day :)