When I was growing up we had a copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (two volumes, bound in blue fabric) on our bookshelf. It contained words I had never heard of and would never use. Archaic words and scientific terms were crammed in beside bizarre borrowings from foreign languages. It spelt disaster if referred to for Scrabble.Forty years have passed and the OED has just released some of the latest words to make it into the dictionary. Is a future generation going to be just as bamboozled by "bants", "hangry" and "brain fart" as I was by "canthus", "dessiatine" and "lacustrian"? At the very least, the addition of new words with the letter "x", "Grexit" and "Brexit", will be welcomed by Scrabble players. Hmm, perhaps best to just stick with The Concise Oxford Dictionary.
No comments:
Post a Comment