Words from Popular Literature Not in OED

[Jeff Prucher]

I'm curious about your choice of "melange" as an example.  I'm aware of use
outside of the source material for "granfaloon" (there's an entry for it in
Grant's political slang dict, btw) and "kryptonite", but I've never encountered
melange without direct reference to Dune, and probably not any more often than
say, "stillsuit" or "sandworm"; "the Spice" I've heard perhaps more often.
Does "melange" have some degree of non-Dune usage that you know of?  (I have a
professional interest in SF words that have spread into broader use, and would
love to see it, if it does.)  Or is your query not about spreading into wider,
albeit still limited, currency but rather about words coined in major literary
works generally?

Jeff Prucher

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Editor, BRAVE NEW WORDS: THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE FICTION
Forthcoming Spring 2007




--- Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:

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> 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
>
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>
> 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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