Thinning the Herd

"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."

Comments

[Brad S]

California is in the process of getting rid of that snollygoster, Gray Davis. I think that's phat...

[Rob]

Who the hell uses a print dictionary anymore?

[judson]

What's the word for "a word that's outlived its usefulness" ?

[not that joe]

More items to remove:

Dime-store
Record player/turntable
record
ice box
light bill (probably gone already, if it was ever really considered a word)
horseless carriage
dinosaur
dodo (or any extinct animal)
straight razor
ditto machine

and anything else that is either rare or non-existant. This seems a bit foolish...removing relatively unused (but real) words for stuff like "phat" and "frankenfood" that may or may not be in use six months from now, or will get less use because they are in the dictionary (and no longer hip).

[StMack]

Coincidentally, I coined a new word today that should probably be added to dictionaries soon: Bisnackual.

[Samuel Johnson]

Record player/turntable

You must not listen to much rap or electronic music. The average consumer may not use a turntable to play music at home anymore, but the device itself has mutated into a musical instrument and the word is used quite often -- just in a different context than before.

This seems a bit foolish...removing relatively unused (but real) words for stuff like "phat" and "frankenfood" that may or may not be in use six months from now

At this point, "phat" is almost a decade old. Or maybe older. It's as "real" a word as "ice box" or "horseless carriage." Sillier, perhaps. But just as real.

A dictionary is a tool for spelling and usage. Why should it be filled with words that nobody spells or uses and ignore words people do want to spell and use? After all, it's not like these words are being eliminated from the language. There's no Central Language Board that's going to bounce your e-mails back to you because you dared to use the word "ice box" in them.

[Warren]

Did santorum make the cut?

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0335/savage.php

[Steven Crane]

I use a record player, straight razor, AND I pay the light bill.

[Mo]

Is email spelled "email" or "e-mail"?

[Anonymous]

Neither if you live in France.

C'est un "couriel".

[Jean Bart]

If you live in France you have complete liberty to use the term e-mail; however, those who make government publications and the like do not.

[Julian Sanchez]

AP style prefers "e-mail"... and at Reason we are slaves to AP style. But does anyone actually say "phat" anymore, outside references to a clothing brand? I thought it had gone to the same slang graveyard as "def" and "stupid."

[joe]

Fly, daddy.

[machiavellean]

"Snollygoster" has been added to the lexicon at my site. Generally a site for made-up words--but also a site for phat words.

"Phat" itself barely made it.