subliterate

[Paul Frank]

> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>

> I think "subliterate" is actually in the print OED2 -- it's just
> difficult to find, buried under sense 19a of the prefix "sub-".
> ("Subliterature" is under 5c.)

You're right. It's there. I'd looked and failed to find it.
Sub-literate is there in volume VIII, p. 9, column 3, without a
definition but with two quotations, one from 1958 about subliterate
societies in Tropical Africa and another from 1973 which says that
most of the population of Puerto Rico is subliterate. Another
advantage of online dictionaries. Apologies to all for wasting your
time.

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
Espace de l'Europe 16
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu

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