Use ‘em or lose ‘em
The Times is lamenting the obsolescence of several English words that have fallen into desuetude:
Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book.
It requires no great fatidical skill to note that the nitidity of a word does not guarantee its continued usage; much of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan tongue, however admirable, has long since fallen victim to caducity, leaving latter-day students trapped in verbal caliginosity, unable to determine even the relative mansuetude of simple everyday malisons.
And while I yield to no one in my admiration for worthy neologisms — well, maybe this guy — I become downright oppugnant when I contemplate purging the language of old words out of space concerns: this is the path of the niddering lexicographer, not the bold one.
McGehee »
22 September 2008 · 5:59 pm
Nah, it’s cromulent with me if they remove those words.
fillyjonk »
22 September 2008 · 9:26 pm
Dangit, Charles, now I’m going to be looking for opportunities to use those words. “Embrangled” is actually kind of pretty-sounding, not unlike “spangly,” which is one of my favorite words.
I guess I’m OK with words being replaced. Just as long as they don’t replace them with text-speech abbreviations or some similar recrement. (And I have to say now, I think “recrement” would be a lovely euphemistic substitution for an Anglo-Saxonism of four letters and beginning with ‘s,’ which means approximately the same thing.)
Charles Pergiel »
23 September 2008 · 12:08 am
desuetude
embrangled
recrement
exuviated
abstergently
roborant
fatidical
nitidity
caducity
caliginosity
mansuetude
malisons
neologisms
oppugnant
niddering
15 words I don’t know, that’s more than I usually encounter in a year. Some of them I get the gist of from context/sound/spelling, like niddering. I have heard of mansuetude before, but I don’t recall what it means. This stuff is not my forte.
If you did this off the top of your head, as I suspect you did, I am impressed. I would look them up, but I think it would be a waste of time. My brain is already full.
CGHill »
23 September 2008 · 6:58 am
In point of fact, I knew only seven of them before I started that piece; the idea, of course, was to work in as many of them as possible. (All except “desuetude” and “neologisms” are defined in the linked article.)
Bobbert »
23 September 2008 · 10:21 am
I Googled ‘nitidity’ and it asked:Do you mean ‘nudity’? Oddly enough, since I was on your site, the answer was no.