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Oxford English Dictionary September 28, 2007 Dear Word People, I have a new word for you. I invented it while singing in the shower this morning. It interrupted my song. Then I said it a little later when I was watering my petunias. At dinner I couldn’t stop saying it. It is quite a wonderful word and, as you can see, it can be used in almost any context. That word is remuliscent. I’d like you to stick it in your dictionary so other people can use it too. It rolls off the tongue like a liquid. It sounds sophisticated, Shakespearean even. Yet it is simple in its remuliscence. Can’t you see!? This is a wonderful word! I was just able to use it to describe itself! It’s a metaword! You should put metaword in your “el diccionario” as well. Metawords for all! Remuliscent metawords! At this point you are probably wondering, “Hey! What does remuliscent mean? And how did I manage to pull off underlining, boldation (NEW WORD!!!) and italicization consecutively?” Well here’s your answer. Remuliscent, like fumptious (you may credit me with this neologism too) cannot really be described in a definition. It’s just there, frolicking around, describing things that might pass as remuliscent. It has 19 uses, but you can’t put them down in words. It’s just one of those words, you know? Anyway, how does this whole process work? If you put remuliscent, metaword, boldation, and fumptious into the dictionary, do I get a nickel when people say them? Is it a dime when they are typed? And what about anonymous authors? How do you go about collecting “word taxes,” or linguofees, from them, if they type something like “The fumptious field flowed with beautiful waves of remuliscence, like a childhood memory of those hot, remuliscent days when people would scream in boldated words”? Alloovious, fertimitude, grangioputty, damacious, and spleek are also awesome new words. Damn, I should just make my own dictionary. Do you have a pamphlet on Make Your Own Dictionary?
Sincerely,
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Now this is a response... the diction'ry people over in Britain certainly know how to correspond (a lost art in America).    |
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