ninme

I love word stories.

The Times - Definitions coming to a dictionary near you
As the English language nears its millionth coinage, here are some newcomers that might make it into the lexicon, by Giles Coren

According to the Global Language Monitor (whatever in the world that is) the English language is on the cusp of a glorious landmark. For there are at present 995,844 official words in this lush and Lucullan language of ours, with the millionth expected to be coined on April 29, 2009.

French, meanwhile, is stuck on 43. But that’s not our problem (and we’ve never been ones to boast of our size in front of the French).

Our problem is the sheer profligacy of our coinage. It is all very well hanging on to words such as “egg”, “bottom” and “Smurf” [and Kermodian!], which are used all the time (although “Smurf” not as often as it used to be), but what of “olation”, “rattinet” and “splore”?

Oh well. Obsolete splore-sounding words are what make the world go round. (I looked up “splore” in my trusty Apple dictionary but it wasn’t there, so I’m assuming it to be an onomatopoeia describing the sound one makes when one pronounces the word “splore”.)

The aforementioned “present rate” is one that I have just worked out. It seems to predict 4,156 new coinages in ten months, which is about 416 a month, or roughly 100 a week. I have been wondering what the 100 new words coined this week are likely to have been. Unfortunately space allows for only 22 of them. Many, you will notice, are merely new meanings for old words, which I am assuming will count. I haven’t actually phoned the Global Language Monitor to ask (I’m a bit scared of him, to be honest).

He supplies some new definitions. Skips Kermodian, tho.