thy thigh etc.

[Douglas G Kilday]

Larry Trask (4 Jun 2001) wrote:

>I'm thinking of real desk dictionaries, like Collins in Britain and
>Merriam-Webster in the US.  And these really do drop words after a while.
>Ask a professional lexicographer.

>I really do not think that the total number of words pertaining to cars,
>planes and spacecraft is about equal to the number of words pertaining to
>oxcarts and buggies.

You may well be right, but I believe that if we had a reliable way of
tracking the "death" of English words, we would find that the number of
words lost from common use every year roughly equals the number gained.
Since you have given 'cellphone', 'hahnium', and other examples of new words
which don't replace anything, let's look at some words marked as obsolete on
a page chosen at random from the 1903 F&W Standard:

nicker  n. 'night-brawler in London in 18th cent.'
nicker  n. 'water-sprite; nixy'
nicknack  n. 'feast to which every guest contributes'
nicotian  n. 'tobacco'
nictate  v.i. 'wink; nictitate'
nictation  n. 'winking; nictitation'
nidary  n. 'collection of nests'
niddicock  n. 'fool; simpleton; ninny; niddy; noddy'
nide  n. 'clutch; brood; flock of pheasants'
nidgery  n. 'trifle; foolery'
nidget, nigget  n. 'simpleton; idiot'
niding, nithing  adj. 'wicked; infamous; dastardly'
niding, nithing  n. 'infamous fellow; coward'
nief  n. 'neaf; fist'
nifle  n. 'trifle; article of female apparel in 15th cent.'
nifling  adj. 'of trifling importance'
nift  n. 'niece'
nig  v.i. 'be stingy or niggardly'
nig  adj., n. 'niggard; niggardly'
nigerness  n. 'blackness'
niggardship, niggardy  n. 'niggardliness'
niggish  adj. 'niggardly'
nigh  v.t., v.i. 'draw near (to); approach'

Most of these have living variants or synonyms, but not all. 'Nicker' in the
first sense, 'nifle' in the second, and probably 'nidary' appear to have
gone out of use without being replaced.

>I've just been marking a pile of final-year dissertations.  Some of our
>students chose to write on such topics as text messaging, graffiti,
>internet chat-rooms, the slang associated with drugs, and obscenities.  I
>was startled to discover, in these writings, a very large number of words
>which were wholly unknown to me, but which are apparently commonplace among
>young people.  I haven't had the time to try looking these words up in a
>couple of recent desk dictionaries, but I'll bet that quite a few of them
>are not entered.

I suspect that similar studies made in 1900 would reveal large numbers of
words unfamiliar to the older generation and largely forgotten today. Most
of what we call "slang" is short-lived; since it is used to grab attention,
it depends heavily for effect on relative novelty. A few slang terms like
'cool' and 'square' have been around for generations and might be considered
"standard slang", but these are exceptional.

>Anyway, lexicographers just *can't* "leave 'em in" all the time.  Cost, and
>therefore size, is just too important, and something has to give.

>Nor do lexicographers even rush to enter new words.  For example, the
>language has recently sprouted a number of new formations in '-wise', such
>as 'moneywise', 'clotheswise' and 'healthwise'.  These have been frequent
>in speech for years, and they are not rare in journalistic writing.  But
>they're still not entered in my desk dictionaries.

Are you referring to adverbs like 'piece-wise', or determinative compounds
like 'penny-wise'? Both types are formed regularly, and one would not expect
desk dictionaries to be cluttered with them, any more than with regular
plurals, participles, adverbs in -ly, etc.

>I'm afraid I can't agree [with lexical stasis].  A large and expensive
>dictionary can often afford to make room for lots of obsolete words, and of
>course the OED must do this by remit.  But an ordinary desk dictionary has to
>be cheap enough, and hence small enough, to sell large numbers of copies --
>and that means that old words have to be pruned from time to time in order to
>make way for new ones.

This _a priori_ economic argument only works if the processes required to
manufacture dictionaries are stable in cost. During the past century and
more, this has certainly _not_ been the case. Improvements in typesetting
and reproduction, and more recently in information technology, have steadily
driven down the actual cost of producing dictionaries. I believe this is the
principal factor in the increasing size of desk dictionaries, _not_
purported expansion of the lexis. When these costs have reached equilibrium,
so will the size of a given brand of dictionary.

I think a good analogy can be drawn with newspapers. Today's typical
regional paper (circulation on the order of 20k-200k) is much larger and
more colorful than its counterpart of 100 years ago. That doesn't mean that
we have much more, and more colorful, news than folks did in 1900, or that
our lives are much larger and more colorful. It reflects the much lower
cost, with modern technology, of producing newspapers and reproducing
photographs.

DGK