At a clothing store with a friend recently, she asked for my opinion on a dress. She twirled around to review every angle, the way the light caught the sequins, how the fabric fell in waves down to her ankles.

“You look,” I said sincerely, “enormous.”

To my subsequent befuddlement, this encomium was productive of rage rather than gratification. She pursed her lips, casting me a frosty glance, and collected the aforementioned waves of fabric before locking herself into the trial room. I couldn’t understand it. Where had I gone wrong? After all, I hadn’t called her fat. Hadn’t we been told, not so long ago, that the term “enormous” was much more palatable?

Of course, my friend isn’t a character in a Roald Dahl novel, so perhaps she missed that memo. It can be hard to keep up with all the

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