Shu and I were at the Farmhouse, a newish restaurant with lots of local craft beers. Z, had it been here when you visited, we would have taken you. Their checks are booklets from the Old Farmer's Almanacs. Ours was from 1978, and it had an article on "Making a Dictionary," which I found very interesting. They interviewed a Dr. Frederick Mish of the G. and C. Merriam Co. about how words get into the dictionary and how pronunciations are determined. One funny comment was that some purists of the English language did not want the "awkward" word prioritize in the dictionary. Awkward?

Here are a couple of "new" words they discussed (remember, this was 1978). Waitressed, low profile, stonewall, domino effect Dr. Welbyish. However, Dr. Mish indicated that Dr. Welbyish had a 99% chance of not making it.

I don't get stonewall. They said it was used by Nixon to mean difficult to get information. Isn't that what it normally means? My research shows that stonewall was used as early as 1880. Is this a nuance change to the definition?

Remember, this was 1978 - they wrote that words scheduled for the next addendum included:

antiabortion
area code
braless
busing
chairperson

Plastic will have an additional meaning of "not genuine or sincere." Pop will have the meaning "to inject drugs, as to pop a pill" added.

I guess I am the only one intrigued by this, but that's okay. They also interviewed the pronunciation editor (I'd like that job! ), John Bollard who had a masters degree in Welsh and was earning a doctoral degree in medieval English. He talked about his pronunciation activities, which included listening to radio, TV and shortwave radio, as well as public broadcast shows, and talk shows featuring people from all parts of the country. His philosophy sounds similar to that we've talked about here: "What the majority of us say, goes" and "There is no such thing as correct pronunciation." I must tell my daughter!