So “bigly” is really “big league”? All together now... that’s yuge!
There’s still two weeks to go until Election Day, but one national debate can already be put to rest... as long as you take the word of Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks as a credible Final Word on Words.
In an email Sunday night, Hicks sought to clarify the true meaning of a common utterance of candidate Trump. On several occasions, including the most recent debate, Trump has seemed to put an exclamation point on his exclamations by ending them with “bigly” (i.e.”we’re going to start winning again, and we’re going to win bigly”). But, according to Hicks, our 600 million or so ears have been deceiving us and Trump has been saying “big league” all along.
So I’ll go ahead and admit it - I’m going to miss “bigly.” Say what you want about the candidate and his positions, but there was a certain gleeful goofy giddiness in his “use” of the word, a word I really think we’ve all come to like. And maybe it’s an even bigger disappointment to discover that, even if he had been saying it, the word isn’t made up at all. “Bigly,” according to Dictionary.com, is lo and behold an actual word meaning “large, as in size, height, width, or amount” or “of major concern, importance, gravity” (in other words, pretty much what we thought Trump meant when he said it.. that is, if he had he actually been saying it).
When the election is finally done, we will need to quit a whole lot of terminology that’s come to rule our every day; this year’s contest has created new connotations for so many of Webster’s words. Until 2016, who really took kindly to being “nasty” or “deplorable”? Now, in certain circles, they’re both compliments and badges of honor.
Which brings us back to “bigly.” Is it really time to say goodbye to the word? As a country, we’re so ready to leave so much of this particular Presidential contest in in the rear-view mirror, but maybe not “bigly.” I think it’s one of the things – maybe one of the only things – that has actually brought a smile to our faces no matter which side we stand on. Back in my high school theater days, when one of us would mess up a line or add a comical flourish not written on the page, our teacher Miss Aeppler would snicker from the back row and, quite often, say “Keep It.” That’s my proposal for “bigly” – it’s our national puppy, it’s been in our homes for so long and we’ve come to love it and find it adorable. I vote we keep it.
The guy famous for saying it? Well, the country should decide that one on November 8... BIGLY.