Every year, hundreds of words are dropped from the dictionary to make room for new words. Lexicographers spend hours researching word usage and may drop words that have been completely neglected by the society.
To reverse this trend, Oxford University Press has launched an initiative called Save the Words that aims to prevent these lesser-known English words from becoming extinct.
Here’s how. You adopt one such word through "Save the Words" and take a pledge to use that word more often in your daily conversations or written communication.
This will directly increase the chance of that word’s survival because the moment lexicographers see discarded words being used in conversations, they may re-include them in the dictionary. Wheatgrass is one such word that was reinstated after missing from the dictionary for several years.
There are hundreds of "lost" words already – vacivity, plegnic, mingent or primifluous for example – all of them, not surprisingly, failed by the Firefox spell checker as well. So go ahead, adopt bring back a nearly-extinct word. In return, you get this nifty certificate.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/adopt-words-bring-back-from-extinction/6732/
Tags: Archives, english, fun, oxford, pledge, words, Internet
Reader Comments
What has been written in the past remains for all to read. There is nothing worse than coming across a word in a book or poem which has arbitrarily been deleted from dictionaries – all existing words should reside in a complete dictionary somewhere.
Just try and find the meaning of “grimpen” . . . .
Written by Ray Hattingh on 01.28.09
That is true. If any word which is included in the dictionary once, and used somewhere, needs to stay in the dictionary. In case, a word needs to be removed then how to find out whether it was already used or not is a tricky question. In this world of ever increasing storage capacity (and in-expensive) why should we remove words from electronic versions of dictionaries?
Written by Benny Joseph on 01.28.09
I don’t understand why words should be removed in the first place. Surely a book, or a series of books, is NOT a finite space. I don’t think that there are specifications dictating an upper limit on the number of words a dictionary can hold. In any case, digital media is much more flexible and expandable so even if hard-copy dictionaries want to reduce costs by removing ‘lower-value’ words, surely a fully comprehensive digital version could be released. It’s sad to think that the English language might one day be reduced to the level of the kids that shorten everything, can’t spell and used street slang in all contexts.
Written by Nadeem Hosenbokus on 01.28.09
As new words are been discovered like Motel an example.. It’s evident that some words goes obsolete and become less familiar… Such kind of initiative will help to redeem those words back..
Written by Fasil on 01.29.09
This is a nice idea, but it’s already been done by a children’s charity in England link . This site helps raise money for children who struggle to speak and understand words.
Written by phatbuoy on 02.02.09
It’s a shame that no one certificate thoroughly enough:
“… to certify that X has on …, has adopted…”
Too many “has”es, methinks!
Written by GrammarChecker on 02.03.09