NRTC English: ‘Bogus’ does not mean ‘big’ and ‘terrific’ does not mean ‘terrible’

Some words in English are often used wrongly because their morphological property (word formation) is similar to other words. For example, because ‘bogus’ is similar to ‘big’ in word formation, many people are wont to use it as ‘extremely large’.

So, one may hear something like ‘The woman wore a bogus gown at the birthday party yesterday’ to mean ‘very big gown’.

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Bogus means fake or not genuine; as in she beamed a bogus smile just to make the man feel good about himself, or he was arrested at the airport for carrying a bogus passport.

In modern usage, ‘terrific’ does not mean terrible or causing terror. Terrific means of great size, amount, or intensity; as in this book has had a terrific influence on me, that’s a terrific idea, the car is going at terrific speed, or your test scores were terrific.

Other words like these are hideous (which means extremely ugly) has nothing to do with ‘hiding’, prodigious (which means remarkably or impressively great in size or degree) as in this stove consumes a prodigious amount of kerosene. ‘Prodigious’, then, is different from ‘prodigal’ (which means being extravagant or wasteful).