humongosity

[…] let’s take a look at the scenery tell me what do you think when you see all this pile-up of people these multitudes of man this humongosity of humanity this superabundance of homo sapiens […]

1992, Miguel Méndez, “Ledras y latrillos/Bricks and Belles Ladders”, in Charles M. Tatum, editor, New Chicana/Chicano Writing, volume 2, Tucson, Ariz.: The University of Arizona Press, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 57

Out in tract-mansion country, where people go past at 50 miles an hour, the status cravers need the Lifestyle Style to do the same job. Just as the car created billboards where once there had been mere handbills, it created tract mansions where once a town house sufficed. Cars mandate humongosity. Theoretically, builders could decorate tract mansions with electric signs blinking “Stately Home.” The postmodernists would love the self-referential irony, but irony is not what tract mansions are about. Big is what they are about.

1990 May 15, Henry Allen, “The Monster Mansions of Outer Suburbia: Stately Subdivisions with a Little Land and a Lot of Lifestyle”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2025, page C1

There was a time when programmers prided themselves on cramming lots of features into the smallest possible space. Ha! If you’ve bought any of the big applications lately (word processing, data management, spreadsheet), you probably think that the days of parsimonious programming are done. Ashton-Tate’s most recent contribution to humongosity is MultiMate 4.0, which comes on 23 (not a misprint) 5.25-inch floppies.

1990 August, Henry F. Beechhold, “Latest Model of an Old-Time Word Processor”, in Home Office Computing, volume 8, number 8, New York, N.Y.: Scholastic Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, “Software Reviews” section, page 70, columns 1–2

Scientists studying Armillaria say in the quest for bigger, older, and heavier, people are missing the point. Armillaria, they say, should be recognized for its unique ecology and genetic diversity – not its humongosity.

1993, “Scientists Question Blob Mentality”, in Forest Perspectives, volumes 3–5, Portland, Ore.: World Forestry Center, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5

THE concept of a trillion has shifted in recent weeks from a fuzzy, imprecise and somewhat abstract notion into a hard-edged number like, say, 47 or 254 or 7,453. […] Before this recent shift in consciousness, a trillion, at least in everyday usage, was an expression more akin to zillion, gazillion and jillion. It was a way of connoting scads, heaps, plenitude and humongosity.

1998 October 18, Michael T[yler] Kaufman, “A Billion, A Trillion, Whatever”, in The New York Times (section 4), New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2025, page 2