I was hoping for something more ridonkulous
Aren't some words just ridiculous? In the Big Bang Theory I came across the following dialogue. Raj picks up Penny for a party and when she opens her door he looks at her and asks if that's she wanted to wear. Penny asks what's wrong with her dress.
<em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Raj: I was hoping for something more </em><em>ridonkulous</em><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">.</em>
<em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">Penny:That’s all the</em><em> donkulous</em><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;"> you’re gonna get tonight</em>
According to Wiktionary, ridonkulous derives from ridiculous and can also be written redonkulous, ridonculous or redonculous. According to the Free Dictionary ridonkulous is "a humorous and exaggerated way of saying "ridiculous." The word neither appears though in Merriam Webster nor in Lexico by Oxford. In context reverso it's translated as "gorillageil" into German which I find absolutely ridonkulous. This is hardly a word in use. If you look for that word in Google there are only 386 hits (ridonkulous has at least 142,000 hits) from which there are actually only two where this word is used. We do have "affengeil" in German which is a slang word meaning awesome (literal translation is "monkey horny"). I understand that ridonkulous is just a funny way of saying ridiculous and should be only used in appropriate situations like with friends who would understand this word play. But it's interesting that the word is noted in Wiktionary and the Free Dictionary but not "official" dictionaries like Merriam Webster. The fact that a word is not noted in a dictionary doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or isn't use but of course for me as non-native English speaker I often rely on what dictionaries tell me. I was a bit surprised that words that aren't new at all just recently got added to certain dictionaries like "abugida" in the Oxford English Dictionary or "rhotic"" and "coulrophobia in the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
My questions are:
The Duden dictionary is regarded as an "authority" when it comes to German words, even though it doesn't prescribe but more describe what's in use in Germany. Which English online dictionary do you trust the most? Which is like an "authority" for you?
Which "ridonkulous" word have you came across recently?