That's pretty big, eh?

In my email newsletter from the NSW State Library:

Few people realise the enormity of the State Library's ever expanding collections. More than five million items are housed in the seven floors below Macquarie Street. Hidden treasures continually come to light and new acquisitions are made every month.

Oh dear, there it is again. Another writer thinks enormity means enormous. It doesn't. It means monstrous wickedness, and once it was a word understood by most educated people.

Today, many don't, so it would be best to take it out of circulation, along with other misused words like disinterested and secreted.

I'd like to expand this list. Any offerings would be welcome. (I've already collected Senator Amanda Vanstone's “the Government is literally bending over backwards”, said on national television.)

You may enjoy this witty and erudite discussion on enormity by a "short, white, leftist feminist law professor" in LA.