My daughter Rachel sends news of plans to remove twenty-four words from the Collins English Dictionary to make room for "up to 2,000 more."
24 Words the CED Want [sic] to Exuviate (Shed) (Time)
(Thank you, daughter!)
Monday, October 6, 2008
Exuviation in progress
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comments: 6
I'm pretty sure I've used "niddering," "fubsy," and "embrangle" before -- at least, they all look familiar. Also, naturally, "malison," but hey, Malory uses it, so it's dear to my heart.
However, I have alas never heard of the rest, here on the eve of their departure. I'm especially taken with "muliebrity," under which I have been since the age of 21.
Here's what I don't understand -- how is it that these words leave SO much room for the thousands of new guys? Why couldn't they stay? What's the process here?
Thanks for commenting, Pandora.
The ones I've seen (not used): "apodeictic," "caliginosity," and "mansuetude."
I too wondered about 24 and 2,000. Like selling one old book so you can make room for 83.3 more! I guess the new words must be very, very small.
"Here are [sic] a list of words."
Maybe they're getting rid of "is."
Noun-verb agreement are important!
Did you catch the mistake in the title too? I wonder if there's a joke involved, as in the Onion article about schools cutting the past tense for lack of funds. Nah, I don't think so.
Exuviation! Great word!
I'm going to miss "oppugnant", "skirr", and "fatidical". A little (After all, I don't use them - I just recognize them). And I wish I'd known about "niddering" and "exuviate" sooner. "Fubsy", too. My web browser's automatic spell-checker has, apparently, already relieved itself of all of those cumbersome words (To be fair, the reality is that it probably never knew of them).
I would almost rather know what all of the "new" words are that will be replacing these unfortunate few. But that sounds like it would be a much longer article.
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