Cometh the Hour, Cometh...

[faustus]

John Clute? Surely he can review us out of the crisis?

Apparently (and clearly this is in part a publicity stunt) Collins are to retire 2000 words from their dictionaries, such as:

Abstergent Cleansing or scouring

Agrestic Rural; rustic; unpolished; uncouth

Apodeictic Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration

Caducity Perishableness; senility

Caliginosity Dimness; darkness

Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else

Embrangle To confuse or entangle

Exuviate To shed (a skin or similar outer covering)

Fatidical Prophetic

Fubsy Short and stout; squat

Griseous Streaked or mixed with grey; somewhat grey

Malison A curse

Mansuetude Gentleness or mildness

Muliebrity The condition of being a woman

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

Skirr A whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight

Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy

Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt


I will henceforth vilipend, despite my fubsyness.

See: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4799560.ece

Edit: I assume Collins are owned by the same company that ultimately publishes the Times. Cross promotion, much?

There's also a plug for http://wordia.com/, which is (c) Collins and doesn't contain skirr nor malisons.

Comments

[maryread.livejournal.com]

Malisons is surely still in use, even if it sounds like something out of Sir Walter Scott. And embrangle is so plain in meaning I don't see how we could possibly lose it.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Supposedly it's to make way for 2,000 new words, and this is a record of current English not all-English-ever. But it sounds a suspiciously round number and certainly I've read malisons, indeed skirr.

Especially as there appears to be some kind of Word Idol (Stephen Fry championing fubsy, Andrew Bloody Motion standing up for skirr) to save one of the words I spell PR weaze. Myself, I'm sticking to Chambers. They've launched an online service which will keep the words, so that's the real story.