Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 February 17

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February 17

Words about size in English

As English is not my first language and I originally had to learn it as a completely foreign language, I still wonder about the meaning of some words.

I understand that "large"/"big" means the opposite thing from "small"/"little", and "tiny" means even smaller than "small"/"little".

But what is the difference between "large" and "big", or between "small" and "little"? And is there such a word as "littler"?

And even though I understand that both "huge" and "vast" mean even larger/bigger than "large" and "big", is there any difference between them? I've understood "vast" is even larger/bigger than "huge", but is this true? JIP | Talk 20:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

It depends on what you're comparing to what. Also note that in British English, the term "massive" seems to be popular. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:33, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

There is no such word as 'littler' but it can sometimes be heard in casual conversational speech, especially when conversing with children. Akld guy (talk) 21:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. See Littler. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Those are surnames only. The OP's question (in context) referred to size comparison. The Littler surname is irrelevant here. Akld guy (talk) 23:52, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

That depends on where the surname came from. But surnames are, in fact, "words". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Stephen Sondheim wrote a lyric about a lad who was "A false alarm, a broken arm. An imitation Hitler, but with littler charm," but I'm confident he meant it as a jocular use of a word not used in formal discourse. - Nunh-huh 01:32, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Littler writers would seem to agree of course. ^^ Modocc (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

wikt:lesser is described as a (standard) comparative form of little. --My another account (talk) 22:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (6th edition) includes littler. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:47, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

There aren't hard and fast rules to answer some of your questions. Different speakers might answer them differently. I would say that "large" and "big" are basically synonymous, although "large" is somewhat more formal. Similarly, "small" is somewhat more formal that "little" but otherwise they are synonymous. However there are some set phrases or idioms where one normally appears -- for example, "big shot" and "big deal" are idioms in which "big" cannot be replaced by "large" even in formal speech. I think almost all speakers would agree that "tiny" is smaller than "small"/"little", and "huge" is larger than "large"/"big". Most, but not all, would probably rank "vast" as larger than "huge", but I can imagine there would be differing opinions about that. Mnudelman (talk) 21:52, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

(EC, agreeing with Mnudelman):There is no standard. It's all about context and preference of the writer/speaker. Person A can say "the vast Grand Canyon is larger than the enormous Bryce Canyon", while person B can say "the enormous Grand canyon is bigger than the vast Bryce canyon". Neither is wrong, and in practice people use quantitative measurements if they need to compare things carefully. It's even ok to say a giant Chihuahua is smaller than a tiny Great Dane...

Here's one list of adjectives from a video game [1] that says 'colossal' is bigger than 'huge'. Here's another list for the LaTeX programming language [2], which says that 'HUGE' is larger than 'huge' (they are having a bit of fun with typesetting humor). To the best of my knowledge, there are only loose associations by convention and sometimes per region, no formal rules on this. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2016 (UTC) P.S. Is this somehow not an issue in Finnish?! Because if so I'd love to hear how you avoid it.

I agree that "little" or "big" is generally more informal than "small" or "large". As for "huge" versus "vast", Wiktionary gives these examples for "vast": The Sahara desert is vast and There is a vast difference between them. The Sahara example shows that "vast" often refers to physical breadth. The second example shows that "vast" can be used in intangible situations. But I would not use "vast" to describe, say, a very large person--I would say he is huge. Loraof (talk) 22:31, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

And I do not think that "vast" is larger than "huge". Loraof (talk) 22:33, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

What about "colossal"?

Also, there's a vast difference between men and women. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:45, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

• Some large dictionaries provide usage information that helps distinguish similar words like this. In my Random House Unabridged Dictionary from 1978, it says:

Great, big, large refer to size, extent, and degree. In reference to the size and extent of concrete objects, big is the most general and most colloquial word, large is somewhat more formal, and great is highly formal and even poetic, suggesting also that the object is notable or imposing: a big tree, a large tree, a great oak, a big field, a large field, great plains. When the reference is to a degree or quality, great is the usual word: great beauty, great mistake, great surprise; although big sometimes alternates with it in colloquial style: a big mistake, a big surprise; large is not used in reference to degree, but may be used in a qualtitative quantitative reference: a large number (great number).

And it says:

Little, diminutive, minute, small refer to that which is not large or significant. Little (the opposite of big) is very general, covering size, extent, number, quantity, amount, duration, or degree: a little boy, a little time. Small (the opposite of large and of great) can many times be used interchangeably with little, but is especially applied to what is limited or below the average in size: small oranges. Diminutive denotes (usually physical) size that is much less than the average or ordinary; it may suggest delicacy: the baby's diminutive fingers; diminutive in size but autocratic in manner. Minute suggests that which is so tiny it is difficult to discern, or that which implies attentiveness to the smallest details: a minute quantity, examination.

I would add that there are some specific senses where only one of the synonyms is used. For example, a lower-case letter may be called a "small letter", but not a "little letter".

--69.159.9.222 (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Edited on request from talk page Tevildo (talk) 18:22, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

To sum up: I will be a large boy - by the end of the next weak (my birthday). HOTmag (talk) 11:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

As a fact, English is not my first language too, and sometimes, less or more, I have serious problems with using words and phrases in the language's contexts. But, as a linguist, my ears (here, my eyes indeed) are sensitive, even though it is hard to avoid common mistakes . Sometimes I think that there are no words like "littler", "littlest", "littlers" (pl.), and son on generally. Could it really be confined as a dialect or imitations of childish/illiterate speech? Some people whose mother-tongue is not English (just like myself), and may be children, use "littler" more. But, I think that I've heard some unusual (or informal) words like "littler" from some English-language people in their conversations, while talking to non-English people. I just looked it up in the OED, wherein has been written "the word has no recognized mode of comparison..." (Littler). There is an amazing Classical Persian duplicated comparative adjective: Persian pronunciation: [bæ.tær.ˈtær] (the Romanized form for بَـترتر), which means "more worse"; but it literally means "worser"/"worster"; i.e., it has a special form of reduplicated comparative adjective suffix! Could the Finnish pienenpieni (= smaller than small^?) something like this? Onnea ystäväni! Hamid Hassani (talk) 01:24, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

There is something of a double-standard - and I assume it exists everywhere. If somebody who is clearly adept at speaking English uses a phrase like "less or more", it will be assumed that they are doing so for effect (humour, irony, etc.), but if someone who is a non-native speaker does it, it will be easy to assume that they are simply misspeaking and/or don't know the more generally accepted word or phrase. For example, you said above that you were a non-native speaker and then said "less or more" when the phrase is typically "more or less", leading me to think that you misspoke. Matt Deres (talk) 13:15, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Of course Matt! I normally use less or more* more than more or less, because the word which means less comes first in my mother-tongue. But in some cases, almost literally, it is like the English equivalent. Language, itself, is a very complicated phenomenon — just like mankind's mind — with different cultures, indeed. Thank you, and I will try to remember your useful advice via practicing it. Hamid Hassani (talk) 23:03, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

See All pages with titles containing littlest.—Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 19 February 2016 (UTC)