Sunday, August 08, 2010

Did you know there is a word purgatory?

Apparently, the Oxford English Dictionary keeps a list of words submitted for inclusion in the dictionary but rejected. Some words spend time in this lexical limbo and eventually are included in the dictionary, and some do not. Here's a short list of some of the words that have so far not made it out, including earworm (a catchy tune that runs through your head) and wurfing (surfing the internet at work). The older words are stored on file cards, but the new ones are stored digitally. Any suggestions for naming this repository? I kind of like word purgatory myself.

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