Essomentic vacivity

Follow me on Twitter

There are hundreds of “lost” words already – vacivity, plegnic, mingent or primifluous and some like squeeze, guts, stick, bad, push, turn, wipe, and stab, are all likely to fade from use in the near future, according to Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading.

Oxford University Press has launched an initiative called Save the Words that aims to prevent these lesser-known English words from becoming extinct. You adopt one such word through “Save the Words” and take a pledge to use that word more often in your daily conversations or written communication. This will increase the chance of that word’s survival because the moment lexicographers see discarded words being used in conversations, they may re-include them in the dictionary.

I also like using words in puns, like:

I sat up all last night wondering where the sun had gone

…And then it dawned on me.

Dwarfism.

It’s a growing problem.

Here’s my adopted word:

Originally posted here

Related articles

• Historical Thesaurus of The Oxford English Dictionary (kottke.org)

Similar Posts:

• 8 ways to have conversations that count
• Hire Me
• 21 Ideas To Simplify Your Life
• 20 powerful ways to get your boss working for you!
• Inspiration on Demand: Create a Swipe File

Enjoy this post? Be sure to subscribe!

Leave a Comment

Username (required) :
Email (required) :
Web Site :
Comment :

Additional comments powered by BackType