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Save our language! 12 Oct 2008

Editors of the largest volume of Collins’ dictionary have opted to excoriate some of the lesser-known words from their take on our lexicon, much to the dismay of many. There are twenty-four words up for excision, and they're all corkers; it is apodeictic that they remain in the English language, lest our noble heritage fall in to a malison of caliginosity:

  • Abstergent
  • Agrestic
  • Apodeictic
  • Caducity
  • Caliginosity
  • Compossible
  • Embrangle
  • Exuviate
  • Fatidical
  • Fubsy
  • Griseous
  • Malison
  • Mansuetude
  • Muliebrity
  • Niddering
  • Nitid
  • Olid
  • Oppugnant
  • Periapt
  • Recrement
  • Roborant
  • Skirr
  • Vaticinate
  • Vilipend

Stop the abstergence—now is not the time for mansuetude!

Read more in The Times (hat tip to MW)

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Comments

  1. excoriate. I don't think that word means what you think it means.Andrew Pollack#
  2. Oh goodie, word games! Why, what do you think I think it means?

    Excoriate
    Verb
    1. Censure or criticise severely
    2. Damage or remove part of the surface of (the skin)

    Seems pretty darn appropriate to me. Is a man not allowed a little poetic licence?Ben Poole#
  3. More great words in this magazine article on the BBC web site:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7659954.stm

    Ben Poole#
  4. dEz wrds R onlE Usd by old farts & shud hav Bin got rid ov lng agoJeff Gilfelt#
  5. old fart? ure lookin @ one.

    laterzBen Poole#

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I’m a developer / general IT wrangler, specialising in web apps, the mobile web, enterprise Java and the odd Domino system.

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