News today that meh will be added to the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins Dictionary. It will be defined as "an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring" and is attributed to Bart and Lisa Simpson (of The Simpsons).
The following may be old news to some (admittedly I heard of it a little while ago, but only found a good link today), but better late than never. Which is very appropriate, actually: The Collins Dictionary is trying to revive endangered English words, which are threatened with being culled from the next edition of the dictionary. A sample of words, taken from the Age article:
abstergent: cleansing or scouring;
agrestic: rural, rustic, unpolished, uncouth;
apodeictic: unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration;
caducity: perishableness, senility;
calignosity: dimness, darkness;
embrangle: to confuse or entangle;
exuviate: to shed (a skin or similar outer covering);
fatidical: prophetic;
griseous: streaked or mixed with grey;
somewhat grey;
malison: a curse;
mansuetude: gentleness, mildness;
niddering: cowardly;
nitid: bright, glistening;
olid: foul-smelling;
oppugnant: combative, antagonistic or contrary;
periapt: a charm or amulet;
recrement: waste matter; refuse; dross;
roborant: tending to fortify or increase strength;
vaticinate: to foretell; prophecy;
vilipend: to treat or regard with contempt.
Funnily (and fore-bodingly) enough, each of these words comes up as a 'spelling mistake' in my browser as I compose this!
The Collins people have started a campaign to increase the use of these words, so as to justify not giving them the heave-ho come editing time. Apparently celebrities have been engaged to 'adopt' a word, and start using it as much as possible, so it might catch on. Like fetch in Mean Girls, perhaps...
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4 comments:
hang on, I *already* use the word 'oppugnant' - they can't get rid of that one!
Burlanjdjan Maïa said:
Many of these words have French relatives that I take to be fairly common, at least in literary French.
But then, the French have always been more sophisticated! Maybe Collins should get some French celebrities to further the cause? :-)
Bulanjdjan Maïa said:
Well, I was rather saying that French was falling out of use first!!
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