Bigger than Dallas

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Meaning

Enormous, spectacular, conspicuous, or so obvious that it should be impossible to overlook. Strongly regional and hyperbolic. Outside Texas it may require context, while the contracted spelling represents pronunciation rather than a different meaning. Regional use: Texas English, especially East Texas.

Origin

This Texas regional comparison, often pronounced and written 'bigger'n Dallas,' treats Dallas as the nearby standard for overwhelming metropolitan size and visibility. A Dallas Morning News columnist recalled in 1989 that people in his East Texas childhood used it for anything stupendous; later regional glossaries also record both literal hugeness and figurative obviousness. The phrase was probably sustained in speech before those printed explanations, so neither a precise coinage date nor a single inventor can responsibly be supplied.

Research Sources

  1. Fascination of the city still bigger'n Dallas The Dallas Morning News
  2. 10 Things Only People From Texas Say The Daily Meal

Variants

  • Bigger'n Dallas
  • Big as Dallas

Usage Examples

  • The new combine looked bigger than Dallas beside the old barn.
  • The answer was sitting on the front page, bigger'n Dallas, and I still missed it.
  • By sunset the storm cloud was big as Dallas and twice as dark.

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