the war on words
Writing about web page http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4799560.ece
The following words are due to be removed from the Collins dictionary, according to a an article in the Times:
Abstergent Cleansing or scouring
Agrestic Rural; rustic; unpolished; uncouth
Apodeictic Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
Caducity Perishableness; senility
Caliginosity Dimness; darkness
Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else
Embrangle To confuse or entangle
Exuviate To shed (a skin or similar outer covering)
Fatidical Prophetic
Fubsy Short and stout; squat
Griseous Streaked or mixed with grey; somewhat grey
Malison A curse
Mansuetude Gentleness or mildness
Muliebrity The condition of being a woman
Niddering Cowardly
Nitid Bright; glistening
Olid Foul-smelling
Oppugnant Combative, antagonistic or contrary
Periapt A charm or amulet
Recrement Waste matter; refuse; dross
Roborant Tending to fortify or increase strength
Skirr A whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy
Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt
"Endangered words must appear at least six times in Collins’s corpus, a database that records word usage in printed, broadcast and online media," says Mr. Malvern, but "compilers will discount any references to words if they appear in articles about the campaign to save them."
Is it worth trying to save this words? Give an artificial boost to unpopular obscurities in thislanguage? I have to say, as a would-be writer, that I think that it is. I also think writers should actively try to make up their own words withou explaining what they mean. They should go so far as to criticise their readers for mispronouncing them; fans HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu will surely back me up on this.
I henceforth vow to villipend all those writers who do not actively seek out obscure, ugly, and embrangling words and render them apodeictic in their works.
Who will join me? I do understand that this is pretty much almost definitely a publicity stunt, but as publicity stunts go, only this one beats it.
Respect to qwantz dinosaur comics for getting there first.
03 Oct 2008 14:24
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Tags: English News Words
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I’m going to try and use as many of these words as possible in my life, more specifically in my creative writing this week!
17 Oct 2008, 16:11
Ryan
You are so coingluant.
14 Jan 2009, 18:27
Kenicky
This is like well cool, Ben. I found this blog by googling Sleeping Passengers, by the way, and I am now going to write a story that uses every single one of those words, as well as my own made up words ‘lawnmowerer’, ‘chemistrate’, ‘nevastation’ and ‘beresford’.
28 Mar 2009, 00:29
Kenicky
Also, some of these words are beautiful – i want to call my children Exuviate and Agrestic.
28 Mar 2009, 00:32
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