I distinctly remember being rapped on the knuckles by an English teacher for misusing the word ‘enormity’. It can only mean, he insisted, a terrible crime or sin. On perusal of a number of recent dictionaries, however, it now seems that ‘modern’
* English allows it to mean the great or extreme scale, or seriousness, of something (such as a problem, situation or event); though not of an object (such as the Chinese population).
Accordingly, we should now be able to refer to: “the enormity of the problem of calculating the enormity of Hitler’s enormities”. Albeit at the price of multiple ambiguities.
It’s no wonder our English teacher — whose name I can’t remember; though we called him ‘Pobbles’ — wanted it left alone. Sometimes the language police have good reason for making the arrests that they do make.
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* Now there’s a slippery word!]]
