"Welfare deform"
Barnhart
ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM
Tue Sep 5 10:39:33 UTC 2000
-- mike salovesh <salovesh at niu.edu> writes:
>Question for lexicographers: At what point does an editorial play on
>words enter the lists as a potential dictionary entry?
This is an impossible question to answer in the abstract. In the case
of _deprovement_, I suspect the attention it has received here will
cause some lexicographers (this one included) to examine. I will look
for frequency (raw numbers of quotations), range (number of titles),
duration (how long it's been around), and novelty (reasonableness of
form). _Deprovement_ reminds me of _proactive_ and other relatively
recent formations of the formula involving prefix substitution.
Regards,
David
David K. Barnhart, Editor
The Barnhart Dictionary Companion [quarterly]
barnhart at highlands.com
www.highlands.com/Lexik
"Necessity obliges us to neologize."
Thomas Jefferson-August 16, 1813
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