Words from Popular Literature Not in OED

Fred Shapiro fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Fri Nov 3 21:59:29 UTC 2006


It seems to me that the OED includes many terms of highly limited
currency, yet I see terms from important novels not being included.

For example, "granfalloon" and "karass" from Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" are
omitted.  "Melange" from the Dune novels, which falls with the
alphabetical range of the OED revision, is also omitted.

Another word not in OED, from a comic-book provenance rather than from a
novel, is "kryptonite."  Surely this is 1000 times more frequently used
than many of the terms in OED.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
Yale Law School                             ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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