I views are sometimes vilipend to some of my more agrestic readers. That wasn’t a nice thing for me to say, not agreeing with me is not apodeictic that someone is agrestic. But some of the Olid, niddering, oppugnant comments left here would certainly vaticinate that to be so.
My parents were word people. They used words well. I was raised in a household in which words were important. My father would learn a new word and incorporate it into sentences until it became natural for him to use in ordinary conversation. So as a school girl, I was often teased about my vocabulary. ‘You use a lot of big words’, the kids would say. I was often not even aware I was using ‘big words’. I was just talking the way we talked in my home. Being a good girl, I learned to ‘dumb down’ as most girls do, but those words still creep to the top and blurt out of my mouth sometimes.
Words are important and apparently I’m not the only one that thinks so. The Times Online has been trying to save some words. They have compiled a list of endangered words and have set up polling so that you can help save words.
The basic problem here is about space. The Collins’s English dictionaries is including 2,000 new words, so has to figure out a way to squeeze them into the space allotted for the dictionaries. So words are being cut. The editors have been struggling with how to get all the words in. They are willing to grant some of the words a reprieve if those words find their way back into more frequent usage by February. And that is how you can help.
Some perfectly good words that are being considered for extinction are ….
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
Recrement - Waste matter; refuse; dross
Vilipend - To treat or regard with contempt
Help save words. Increase your vocabulary (and go to the website to vote on the words of your choice).