In the news - Tossers and prats need public help

[Emily G. Cunningham]

* Ananova: *    *http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2141954.html?menu=
Tossers and prats need public help* Jan. 3, 2007

The public are being challenged to find the origins of 40 well-known words
such as prat, wally and tosser.

Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary also need to source words like
hoodie, dogging, pole dance, spiv and loo.

All successful findings, which must include date evidence of their usage,
will feature in the new series of BBC2's Balderdash and Piffle, hosted by
Victoria Cohen.

OED's chief editor John Simpson said: "In last year's show people found
words tucked away in football fanzines, LPs and school newspapers. It is
these sources we can't easily get our hands on when we're researching."

The OED tries to find the earliest usage of all 600,000 words in the English
language
Last year, the public helped update the dictionary on the ploughman's lunch,
the 99 icecream and the full mon
**
[See Appeals list at http://dictionary.oed.com/readers/appeal.html]
--
Emily G. Cunningham
egcunningham at gmail.com
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." -
James Thurber

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