Classic rare words [Was: Early ADS WOTY nominations posted]

[Joel S. Berson]

At 12/19/2007 03:41 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In thinking about the coming "Words of the Year" festival, ADS-ers should
>ponder the fate of previous choice TRUTHINESS, which appears to be
>going the way
>of the infamous BUSHLIPS. Here are some figures for a Google search for uses
>in the past week:
>
>truthfulness 94,800 hits
>*embeded giving 27,000 hits
>information superhighway 26,700 hits
>+recondite 22,500 hits
>semblance of truth 14,800 hits
>+otiose 7,500 hits
>+avuncular 5,750 hits
>*tourism suicide 6,950 hits
>TRUTHINESS 1,490 hits
>*concierge medicine 1,470 hits
>ping pong diplomacy 780 hits
>bushlips 1 hit (in the Wikipedia article about ADS WOTY winners)
>
>Items marked (*) were recently posted on ADS-L and at least one sophisticated
>ADS-er responded that he did not know what they meant.
>
>Items marked (+) are classic rare words.

Your avuncular explanation of the three recondite words is otiose.

(Apologies -- this must already be in the YBQ.)

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org