Nothing certain but death and syntax?
Apologies for the corny title, but m. heart brings a serious matter to my attention. Apparently hundreds of words are removed from the dictionary each year to make room for new ones, leading me to wonder if there really is such an item as a true unabridged dictionary. I've got nothing against adding slang but I'm horrifed to discover that they're dropping perfectly good words like drollic and divinipotent to make room for wOOt, which was named word of the year for 2007. Sure, it's cute, but word of the year? Just shoot me. Talk about viliorating the language. Small wonder that "the average number of words in the written vocabulary of a 6- to 14-year-old american child in 1945 was 25,000 compared to a mere 10,000 in 2000. Forget about rotting in hell for the mortal sin of sigilism, but one almost wishes stiricide to the head on the keepers of the dictionary. Especially now that I was just getting ready to coquinate.
But all is not lost. The good news is savethewords.org is working to save the old language from extinction. You can adopt your own words over there. I understand you can even get a tshirt with your word emblazoned on the front. Act now before it's too late.
Glossary:
coquinate: v. to behave as a cook
drollic: adj. pertaining to puppet shows
divinipotent: adj. having strong divinatory powers
sigilism: n. act of revealing the secrets of the confessional
stiricide: n. falling of icicles from a house
viliorate: v. to become less good, to deteriorate
[grahic]
[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]
posted by Libby Spencer at 6:05 PM
21 Comments:
I have been viliorating for years. That's the word for me. :)
Hey Ali. I'm still trying to choose just one. I kind of like them all.
I use the oxford dic. Maintains all the old words for centuries.
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Is "bloviate" in there?
How 'bout "cluelessly"?
Or "blockade"? Or is it "blockhead"?
Banana Republican?
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Loved you post. Thanks for the great words.
Hey Brian. Nice to see you. Hope all is well. I like Oxford too.
Cosa, I didn't check the new words but I bet they're there at the expense of stiricide.
Glad you liked the post Mike.
Indeed we've become a balbation nation, we regularly substitute baby talk for words which any average person would have known not long ago - portmanteau words like "ginormous" work well and sound cute when you don't know the many nuanced and precise words describing size, and think long, clumsy, inept and cliche phrases make you sound smarter than clear speech.
How many people use "due to" instead of because, think they're synonyms? They're not, think about it. The Thesaurus is one of the biggest sources of corruption we have.
I worry most about the merging of words that, to the unlettered, sound similar but aren't: enormity/enormousness, tortuous/torturous, Discomfort/discomfit and a host of others. There's no excuse for instantly codifying misuse by the meretricious American dictionaries. There's no excuse for speaking puffed up Slanglish especially by professional journalists on CNN and in the papers; efforting to impactify their impactive blather.
It's not just these arcane words we're losing, it's ordinary but precise language that's being stuffed into an ill-fitting and blurry synonym like formerly discrete parts of a pig into a sausage casing. We've lost the whole butcher shop to the hot dog stand.
It isn't those who have mastered the greatest language ever (and I do believe it is) it's the product of a school system that has been hostile to grammar, vocabulary and literature and an absolute whore to the fashions and failings of the masses. It's business schools who teach impenetrable jargon at the expense of honest language. I think the "prescriptive Vs. descriptive" ideology is political in nature, of course, but Orwell said it all better than I can.
When I was in college a friend of mine bought an OED. It was huge, came in three volumes, and the type was so small that it actually came with a little magnifying glass that was stored in a tiny little drawer.
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What bothers me is when people use "I" instead of "me," or "he" for "him, etc, in the objective, because they think it sounds classier, or something.
"Yes, we were hoping Mother would leave the settee to she and I." Especially when there's two people. Like "me" or "her" is a lower-class word. As if you should only say "me" to your dog or a baby or an imbecile, because they wouldn't understand or appreciate the more refined "I."
I really do think it's a class thing. We're developing an Indian caste system, complete with facial markings. So why not a Japanese grammar that reflects relative social status precisely?
Even otherwise pretty good writers do this all the time in the movies and on the tee-vee. Drives me nuts.
Whew! I feel better now. Maybe I won't go shoot up a McDonalds.
Maybe I'll just snort a Burger King.
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The Phrontistery, by Forthright, is also a good site to bookmark.
From the intro: "...Since 1996, I have compiled word lists in order to spread the joy of the English language. Here, you will find the International House of Logorrhea (an online dictionary of obscure and rare words), the Compendium of Lost Words (a compilation of ultra-rare forgotten words), and many other glossaries, word lists, essays, and other language and etymology resources...."
http://phrontistery.info/
Hey Fogg, I meant to dedicate this post to you, knowing it's a subject dear to your heart.
SoBeale, If I ever get a home of my own someday, I want one of those.
Cosa, you and Fogg definitely need to spend more time together. You're obviously kindred souls.
Larkspur. It's always make me happy to see you here. Terrific link. Thanks.
I make up for my minimal command of our language by paying for my daughter's English degree. Perfect 4.0 student. Graduates this May. Somebody please hire her and get her off my payroll.
I'm doing my part....
LOL Truth. You sell your command of the language short and I'm wishing your daughter luck.
Phila, that left me temporarily speechless. I prostate myself at your feet while I search for flosculations worthy of prebition.
katzenmusik? Vieleicht nicht, but it did put a giggle into my matutinal pandiculations.
nichtdestoweniger, that's the kind of linguistic pomposity that, although I enjoy it as an art form, post-revolutionary English teachers use to impugn the concept of proper English.
I do agree with the cast system reference but the difference between American untouchables and their Indian counterparts is that general lowlifery (yes I made that up) is in the ascendancy here. The Brahmins are on the run in America and In England as well and in our collective shop window, the mall, one sees the affluent aping the homeless every day.
LOL Fogg. I believe Phila's post was meant as mockery of a wingnut post that started the whole exchange and became a sort of in joke between himself and Thers. Or was it Attaturk? Coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Well Ja, and everything I write is a mockery of something, nicht wahr?
Mock your socks off, I always say -- except when I don't.
LOL Fogg. Word has it you don't even wear socks.
Sometimes not even shoes, but it's been COLD this week.
So I've heard. Did it get below freezing down state as far as you?
I should check these old threads more often - sorry. No it freezes here about once a century and so far this one has been frost free.
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