what a prodigious idiom “prodigious” means huge, enormous, or over the top. it is usually reserved for grand and tremendous items or feats. for example, “dwight’s rockets scientific magnitude is prodigious.” “raven’s talent for singing the blues is prodigious.” “she’s prodigious at theft.” or for usage in the more common vernacular, “her tits are prodigious.” in this instance, “prodigious” is used to mean “big.” but what about when it is used not as an adjective, but as an adverb? “she prodigiously makes bad decisions.” in this case “prodigiously” is an adverb describing how “she” makes bad decisions. however, this usage of “prodigiously” is quite rare. this is because “prodigiously” is almost always used to describe the magnitude of something, and is rarely used as a word to describe how something is done. the primary usage of this adverb is in the field of science where there are so many adverbs describing the magnitude of something, but few describing how something is done. for example, “dwight’s rocket’s scientific magnitude is prodigious, but its velocity can only be described as cataclysmic.” here “prodigious” describes magnitude, but “cataclysmic” describes what manner of velocity the rocket has. in summary, “prodigious” is most commonly used as an adjective to describe how BIG things are, but sometimes can be used adverbially to describe how one does something, but that usage is less common because of words like “violently” or “secretly” or “miserably,” which tell the how, but not the magnitude of how. further, adverbs that can describe the magnitude of something (prodigiously) rarely describe the manner of something. for example, “he sleeps depravedly.” depravedly is an adverb describing how he sleeps. wonderfully works similarly, “she writes wonderfully.” beautifully also does the same job, “she paints beautifully.” but can depravedly, wonderfully, and beautifully be used to describe the magnitude of something? you rarely hear, “he sleeps depravedly,” but you may hear, “he eats depravedly.” well… sure. “He eats depravedly.” but can you magnify “depravedly?” “he eats depravedly, but how much, or how bad is he eats in depraved way? can I add an adverb to “depravedly” to speak to it’s magnitude? “He eats depravedly-ly.” no. it does not work as an adverb in an adjective manner. “She writes wonderfully” “she writes wonderfully-ly” no. “she paints beautifully” “she paints beautifully-ly” no. you cannot add “-ly” to adverbs to speak to the magnitude of them. so why does dwight’s rocket have a velocity that is “cataclysmic,” but dwight’s rockets scientific magnitude is “prodigious.” the usage of “cataclysmic” is more apt because velocity can be viewed as the result of many factors. for example, the velocity of the rock could quickly rise, and once it is high velocity, it then slowly decreases velocity. rather than say “the velocity was quickly fast and then slow,” we can use an adverb to describe the shift in velocity such as “fast.” “the rockets velocity quickly shifted fast, then slow.” you could also say, “the rockets velocity violently shifted fast, then slow.” the word “violently” describes the manner of how the velocity changed, and gives a stronger understanding of what “quickly shifted fast” means. “The Rocket’s altitude and velocity steadily grew, creating a rough yet comfortable experience, but she bounced violently during her initial descent.” the way “violently” is used here, we could replace it with “quickly,” but that takes away from the visceral feeling that is evoked. the same can be said of the word “cataclysmic.” it’s usage in the phrase “cataclysmic velocity,” sells the severity that the rocket’s diet soda powered engine could rapidly spin up and then suck balls. okay so what does “prodigiously” mean?!
