Words from Popular Literature Not in OED

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Nov 4 00:03:00 UTC 2006


And even though the level of usage of these terms *be* minimal, I'm
completely in agreement with you, Fred. That's why the term, "hapax
legomenon," was invented.

-Wilson

On 11/3/06, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Words from Popular Literature Not in OED
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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