[Ads-l] Wokeness

[Dennis During]

Wiktionary contributors are often very happy to add, as full entries, terms
that are mere morphological conversions from one word class to another.
Their attestability is usually not a major problem. Having full entries for
them helps sometimes in offering non-trivial the opportunity to add
non-trivial translations.  Print dictionaries and, more importantly, any
lexicographical operation that depends on sales of print dictionaries will
probably not devote much effort to terms that are lexically trivial, but
take up page space.

On Sun, Jan 15, 2023 at 10:41 AM Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> On 1/15/23 00:00, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> > Date:    Sat, 14 Jan 2023 22:10:52 +0000
> > From:    "Shapiro, Fred"<fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject: Wokeness
> >
> > I have a lexicographical question that is puzzling me.  The vogue use of
> "woke" is now well recognized.  But I don't see "wokeness," which surely
> has become an important word in its own right, in OED or Merriam-Webster.
> It has over 3 million Google hits, and over 10,000 hits on Nexis.
> "Wokeness" is in the Urban Dictionary, Wiktionary, and Cambridge English
> Dictionary.  According to Nexis, the word has appeared as early as Feb. 5,
> 2014 (in University Wire).  Why haven't the two major dictionaries picked
> it up yet ?
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
>
> The editors/lexicographers/definers may consider it self-explanatory and
> may at best enter it as an undefined run-on at "woke".
>
> ---Amy West
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
Dennis C. During

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