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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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M-W announced its top ten favourite words for 2004. They are:
defenestration
serendipity
onomatopoeia
discombobulate
plethora
callipygian
juxtapose
persnickety
kerfuffle
flibbertigibbet
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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So gee, who gets to decide? Is it the same people who decide what new words make it in, or don't?
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Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Did it explain why these are its favourites or is this an arbitrary list? Did its staff vote on this do you suppose? Were other words considered and discarded? Are we intended to try to use these words as frequently as possible during the year? Or perhaps M-W plans various events during the year to popularise them? Anyway, is a dictionary allowed to practise favouritism? Does this explain why certain words fall out of use and then disappear; does that happen because the dictionaries didn't like those words? After all, if you have favourites then you can have pet hates too. A malicious dictionary could do a lot of damage to an innocent word.
It's a tantalising piece of information and we should be told more!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah, dixbie! We wanna know more! We deserve to know more! What about that neat word 'gallimaufry'? I'll bet it's sitting in a corner crying its little eyes out. Just say the word, and I'll make up placards, and we'll picket Merriam-Webster: "Justice for gallimaufry! Justice for gallimaufry!"
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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[for the nonce; in no particular order]
effutiation
perpilocutionist
maritorious
stupiditarian
contravivulating
aetataureate
matriotism
preantepenultimate
misodoctakleidist
adfenestration [coined by me, from the nonce word adfenestrate]
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
Maggy slipped on the top step of the kitchen steps and subjected herself to accidental defenestration. Through sheer serendipity she realised that she was only on the first floor as she fell. She landed with a popping sound, a perfect example of onomatopoeia. Realising this she checked her hair in case there were any paparazzi about. Still, not one to let such things discombobulate her, she got to her feet and checked to see that she had lost none of the contents of her plethora of pockets. "It's fortunate for me that I am callipygian," she thought as she moved to juxtapose herself between the door and the doorframe on her way back inside. "If I was skinny as a rake my backside would really be aching! It pays to be persnickety about my diet despite the kerfuffle it causes at breakfast time." In point of fact, she was so into and out of diets that her family was quite convinced that she was a real, dyed-in-the-wool flibbertigibbet!
Pant - pant - pant - pant - pant ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Verrry good! Go to the top of the class. The juxtaposition of the kitchen steps and the window is a bit strange, but I wouldn't be picky.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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That one left me breathless,too, Cap.
Applause Applause
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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now let's see what he can do with that other list...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I mentally invited you to take up a new job involving sex and travel ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I mentally invited you to take up a new job involving sex and travel ...
How vice-presidential of you, Pfranz.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Merriam-Webster has a word-of-the-day club, a mere shadow of our own august collegium, and solicited, from its members, their nominees for favourite word. Those words which received the most votes (excepting, I suspect, some undecipherable votes from Florida) were acclaimed the winners.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I went away, but instead found this:
Once upon an aetataureate delusion we all celebrated a certain matriotic holiday. Actually, had we done so this year, it would have fallen on the preantepenultimate day, but I digress. I recall fondly one such day when Pfranz, who tends toward being quite the perpilocutionist, was heard to utter the following effutiation, "dames maritorious ne'er were meritorious." Wordwind, who should have been practicing piano, but who is also a practicing misodoctakleidist, chose this moment to practice an act of adfenestration, through the open window, after which she commented upon the contravivulating nature of the dialectic of the room. We all laughed out loud.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Okay, okay, but where's the sex?
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