Comments on: Yes yes! Pick me!

Yes yes! Pick me!

Tufa — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:44:17 -0800

Save the Words. Do lost words still have meaning? Just because society has neglected them doesn't make them any less of a word. How do you get lost words back in the dictionary? With lexicographers scanning publications and other communication for words not currently housed in the dictionary, all you need do is use your adopted words as often as possible. Go, Adopt a Word. Like graocracy.* * - government by an old woman or women.

My adoptee: hymnicide: killing of hymns through alterations.

By: Joe Beese

Joe Beese — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:49:44 -0800

aporrhoea [n. 1646 -1880] a bodily emanation; an effluvium "Who cut the aporrhoea?"

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:55:58 -0800

It's Friday afternoon so I'm capernoited and don't want to be too inaniloquent, and in any event have come ecdysiophilia to partake of, but I promise to revisit this in due course.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:56:07 -0800

Primifluous: that which flows first It could be used for descriptions of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, but god help me, I can't think of any other possible context... Nope, none at all.

By: Fiasco da Gama

Fiasco da Gama — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:57:28 -0800

This post goes further than was really necessary.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:57:53 -0800

Evidently I can't adopt widdershins as it's not on their list.

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:03:25 -0800

supererogatory

By: Sova

Sova — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:27:05 -0800

Maybe some words were just meant to become extinct? It's a jungle out there, and I guess there were good reasons 'veteratorian' lost out to 'subtle'. This programme is like the heck cattle of lexicography. It just ain't scelidate.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:36:10 -0800

"Like graocracy.* * - government by an old woman or women. " Make that Grace-ocracy and I'll take it

By: Lemurrhea

Lemurrhea — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:36:38 -0800

But I can't open this page in my text-only web browser. They're failing to do what they ask of us. I went through a period of actively hunting down neat words and finding ways to work them in. Then I realized that most of the time (exceptions include this entire thread, among others) it's pretentious and a little bit wasteful. Words are important enough that you shouldn't try to force them, they should come out naturally. Build the idea, then find the word. Also: The Infinite Jest glossary

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:37:40 -0800

So was it your goal to post to askme, metatalk, and metafilter all in one day? Is your goal to find fault with the most people you possibly can, and for the most ridiculous reasons? Give it a rest, dude.

By: rubah

rubah — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:42:29 -0800

nubivagant describes me quite a lot of the time, so I was happy to do my part for the cause.

By: troybob

troybob — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:56:44 -0800

I fall on the side that if you use an obscure word where a simpler word or phrase would do (at least absent stylish use of such, as DFW), then you bear responsibility for the failure of the communication.

By: jock@law

jock@law — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:08:08 -0800

I wanted to pick fallaciloquence, but it wouldn't show me what it meant. I looked it up on the online OED though. [ad. L. fallaciloquentia, f. fallaci- (see prec.) + loquentia talking: see -ENCE.] Deceitful speech

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:17:48 -0800

Traboccant is mine, now. Appropriate in so many ways. Related.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:30:12 -0800

is our vocabularies growings?

By: Nattie

Nattie — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:46:09 -0800

Oh great, now we're having a word bail-out. They had their chance!

By: justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow

justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:31:00 -0800

Hm. A lot of these words don't need to be preserved in that they are closely tied to a working knowledge of the classics. Many of these words will be intuitive only for people who know Greek and Latin, and it would be natural for someone who is fluent in those languages to reinvent such words on the fly if the word had been forgotten. Restore knowledge of the dead languages and you get competence in these words for free. Without the languages, many of these words are neither natural to say nor easy to understand. ------ Since we're talking about what we lose when words fall out of the dictionary, we can't do without mentioning Orwell's Politics and the English Language

By: acrobat

acrobat — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:45:46 -0800

Most of these words may seem extinct, lost, or weird to you, but they are still being used in the languages where they originate. Graocracy, for example, is a Greek word (graiokratia) that is still being used. Though you would still need to be a more or less educated Greek to use it properly. The same goes for a lot of other "weird" words non Greek people use. As for Latin, quite a few of of its word are derived from the Greek also. Nothing beats studying the classics if you are in love with language.

By: acrobat

acrobat — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:47:25 -0800

...of its words are...

By: Fiasco da Gama

Fiasco da Gama — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:01:01 -0800

Acrobat, I've seen gerontocracy and gerontocratic used in political science in English. Just sayin'.

By: acrobat

acrobat — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:19:02 -0800

Quite right, fdg. In Greek it would be "gerontokratia" and it means governed by people close to death :)

By: scruss

scruss — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:47:01 -0800

Dictionary Blue: expect a news release on some new OED-related product from Oxford RSN.

By: adamdschneider

adamdschneider — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:34:34 -0800

I'll bet if I fed this site into a randomizer a Gene Wolfe novel would fall out.

By: sadiehawkinstein

sadiehawkinstein — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:24:45 -0800

supererogatory. I see what you did there.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:36:38 -0800

I'm currently doing my part to see to it that catarrh, ague and quincunx stay with us a little longer. "Although they suffered from a great ague, the survivors were able to arrange the five dead of the catarrh into a pleasing quincunx."

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:10:20 -0800

An eximious and copacetic post! (I could do without the squeaks of "Pick me," but one can always turn down the sound.)

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:11:24 -0800

My candidate for most unnecessary word: "Dodrantal, consisting of nine inches."

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:47:54 -0800

My candidate for most unnecessary word: "Dodrantal, consisting of nine inches." Sure, if you're white.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:55:40 -0800

I prefer 'niner.' It's understated and humble. "Hey, would you like to see my dodrantal?!" "What's a dodrantal?" "Well, let me..."

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:06:54 -0800

Is there a link to the non-flash part of the site? There doesn't seem to be a way to skip it and it's taking forever to load.

By: grabbingsand

grabbingsand — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:28:26 -0800

Lambition. Meaning, apparently, "licking up with the tongue." Huh. Well, it's my word now and I'll hear nothing said ill about him. Her. It. The word.

By: millipede

millipede — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:54:13 -0800

love.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:19:34 -0800

Graocracy, for example, is a Greek word (graiokratia) that is still being used. Though you would still need to be a more or less educated Greek to use it properly. The thing is there aren't many occasions to use the word. You can infer its meaning etymologically, but I doubt I've ever seen it used. Gerontocracy on the other hand...

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:20:20 -0800

Torschlusspanik literally "Shut gate panic", it's the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.

By: newdaddy

newdaddy — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:57:18 -0800

By: jellywerker

jellywerker — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:05:56 -0800

"Lambition. Meaning, apparently, "licking up with the tongue." Huh. Well, it's my word now and I'll hear nothing said ill about him. Her. It. The word." I going to name a cat that someday.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:11:36 -0800

Well, now it's time for me to unpack my old canard "busculation" which I've found in exactly one (1) short story by Michael Chabon, and absolutely nowhere else. Did he make it up? If so, is it really a word? He appears to be the first to use it, but I suspect he created it on the model of the French bousculer 'jostle, bump against' (which has a rare nominal form bousculation), if that fits with the way he uses it. (Google Books won't let me see the context.) Also, I'm not sure you're using canard correctly.