Thinning the Herd

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"When the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary came out in July," writes David Kipen, "the publisher and the media mostly stressed the 10,000 newly added words and senses. 'Phat,' especially, came in for a lot of attention, as did 'Frankenfood' and 'cheesed off.' What got hardly any attention were the evicted words -- the fat that got trimmed to make room for 'phat.'"

Among the deported entries: microcopy, record changer, portapak, vitamin G, frutescent, impudicity, sheep-dip, ten-cent store, and snollygoster, which means "a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician." Comments Kipen: "Now there's a word that's outlived its usefulness, you bet."