ABSTRACT
Bertrand Russell once described the word obstinate as an “irregular verb”. During a BBC radio programme, he offered the conjugation, “I am firm, you are obstinate, he is pig-headed” (Pearson, 2009). I could do the same with the word fat: “I am plump, you are fat, he is obese.” The Microsoft Word thesaurus offers the following synonyms for the word fat: overweight, plump, chubby, stout, portly, obese, heavy, large, big, corpulent, hefty, huge, enormous. Relative to the other options, chubby has an affectionate ring to it and plump is not as fat as obese or enormous or huge. Portly and stout are somewhat old-fashioned and are associated with upright elderly gentlemen in threepiece suits or stiff, matronly women. Corpulent suggests men with wide girths. Big and large could refer to size and height, not just weight, so they are less blunt than fat or overweight. Given these options, plump seems to be among the lesser of the evils, which is why I chose it for the first person form of my “irregular verb”.
