Thursday 5 August 2010

Dunandunate


There's a fun little article in today's Telegraph about words that have been rejected by the OED and now skulk miserably in a vast oubliette somewhere among the dreaming spires. You can read the article here. The failed candidates are mainly portmanteau words. My favourite was dunandunate, which is to learn a new word and then use it incessantly.

3 comments:

  1. My fav is 'dringle' (watermark left on wood by a glass of liquid.

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  2. The Antipodean, who uses the word 'earworm' fairly often, wondered if she should write a novel about it, or maybe just letters to the paper, and then8 August 2010 at 09:10

    I like furgle; I am constantly furgling in my bag or a drawer for things. A Very Useful word.

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  3. Interesting to read this article again in 2015 and see "griefer", "earworm", "pharming" and "freegan" on the list. I wouldn't be at all surprised if all four of those were in the OED by now.

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