24 Endangered Words

Submitted by Tawny Sverdlin on Tue, 10/07/2008 - 15:13.

The Collins English Dictionary wants to discard 24 words in order to make room for up to 2,000 new entries. Who says vocabulary control isn’t relevant? My personal favorite is “Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman.” Ian Brookes, managing editor of Collins has stated that “We want the dictionary to be a reflection of English as it is currently spoken rather than a fossilized version of the language.” Collin’s editors are facing passionate resistance from language lovers who believe that removing any words from the dictionary reduces the multiplicity that makes language powerful.

The 24 words have a second chance for ressurection however. If by February 2009, a word appears with at least six “high quality” citations, it might be spared from its expulsion from the CED. Andrew Motion, Britain’s poet laureate since 1999 has selected “Skirr” which refers to the rattling, scratchy noise that a bird’s wings make during flight. However, the poet has also advocated that some words should be sacrificed for their clumsiness.

Abstergent: Cleansing
Agrestic: Rural
Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration
Caducity: Perishableness
Caliginosity: Dimness
Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else
Embrangle: To confuse
Exuviate: To shed
Fatidical: Prophetic
Fubsy: Squat
Griseous: Somewhat grey
Malison: A curse
Mansuetude: Gentleness
Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman
Niddering: Cowardly
Nitid: Bright
Olid: Foul-smelling
Oppugnant: Combative
Periapt: An amulet
Recrement: Refuse
Roborant: Tending to fortify
Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight
Vaticinate: Prophesy
Vilipend: To treat with contempt

Link to Time Article:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1847038,00.html

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