[Ads-l] Wokeness

[Shapiro, Fred]

I don't think the OED has any reluctance to include self-explanatory words with the suffix -ness.

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 10:41 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Wokeness

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

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