they don't make words like they used to

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Apparently: occurring once every five years.  The free online dictionary says:
 
lus·trum Pronunciation <javascript:play('L0296900')>  (l <http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ubreve.gif> s <http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif> tr <http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/schwa.gif> m) 
n. pl. lus·trums or lus·tra (-tr <http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/schwa.gif> ) 
1. A ceremonial purification of the entire ancient Roman population after the census every five years.
2. A period of five years.
 
--------Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn
Sent: Mon 9/11/2006 1:10 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: they don't make words like they used to



Just got this notice on Linguist List, which led me to wonder...
<snip>
>
>Meeting Description:
>
>This lustrum workshop offers a forum of discussion between
>researchers from different fields of writing research (theoretical
>linguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics or
>language education), from different countries and working on
>different languages.

...what exactly a lustrum workshop was.  I was pretty sure I'd never
knowingly encountered a lustrum before, and had no conception of what
it might be.  Anyone else know?  I may have lived a sheltered (not to
say benighted) life, but I was somewhat surprised to come across this
announcement with its apparent presupposition that the reader would
immediately recognize that a "lustrum workshop" obviously refers to...















































...one that meets every five years.  From:

LUSTRUM
1. A ceremonial purification of the entire ancient Roman population
after the census every five years.
2. A period of five years.
[AHD4]
Now, \quintennial/ I'd have figured out.  (But maybe the idea is that
some ritual purification of orthography is involved.)

LH

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org