We tend to think of OED as the authority defining 'what is a word': what OED includes counts as a word; what it omits had not achieved word-status, at the publication date.

But when looking up an abbreviation that OED used, I discovered that OED includes words for which it has no citation at all (or only a single citation), other than an entry in another dictionary. It indicates these by rare¯º or rare¯¹ (or by Obs. with like numbers). You can verify that from OED's site here at 4(c), and here, and near the bottom here at heading "Superior Numbers".

But this raises questions. If OED has no non-dictionary cite for a word (or only a single such cite), then why does it include the word at all? And, given that it does include some such words, why does it omit others?

I don't know how common such entries are. Perhaps someone with access to OED on-line could do a computer-search to find out.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shufitz,

We tend to think of OED as the authority defining 'what is a word'

I tend to think of the OED as the best mono-lingual English dictionary.

But this raises questions. If OED has no non-dictionary cite for a word (or only a single such cite), then why does it include the word at all?

To show that it did not leave out a rare by mistake?

And, given that it does include some such words, why does it omit others?

To annoy Kalleh?

Why do you think I wrote Jesse recently? I was trying to put in a good word for that poor little "non-word."

Every so often we do seem to come back to that same question...what makes a word a word? Many consider the OED as the judge of that. However, we have found some significant mistakes in the OED. "Political football" was one. I mean, even the OED publishers are human, I imagine (though I am not sure).

now that you've dropped Jesse's name, Kalleh, I feel okay about posting this. : )
[edit: this dates from shortly after Jesse left Random House to be the guy at the NA unit of OED]

quote:

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Wed, Oct 16, 2002
> Jesse,

> H.L. Mencken wrote: "I proposed the use of bootician to
> designate a high-toned big-city bootlegger in the American
> Mercury, April, 1925.. The term met a crying need, and had
> considerable success. In March, 1927, the San Jose
> Mercury-Herald said: 'Our bootleggers are now calling
> themselves booticians. It seems that bootlegger has some
> trace of odium about it, while bootician has none.'" I guess
> bootician must have gone the way of Prohibition. Mencken
> also coined the word "ombibulous" for the title of his book,
> The Ombibulous Mr. Mencken. Does either of these words
> merit inclusion in the updated OED?

In general, for a word to be included, we'd need some indication
of wider use. For Menckenisms, _ecdysiast_ and _booboisie_ are
both coinages that successfully made it into broader currency
and will be included. The two you mention seem not to have done
so, though we do have some examples from Mencken.

> And while I'm at it, I've got a couple of questions regarding obscure words:

> 1) kumatage - A bright appearance in the horizon, under the
>sun or moon, arising from the reflected light of those bodies
>from the small rippling waves on the surface of the water
>FROM Bowditch´s Navigator, 24th edition (1854) page 295. Can
>you tell me anything about this odd word's
>etymology/pronunciation?

> 2) epicaricacy - Mrs. Byrne defines this as: taking pleasure
>in others' misfortunes; this sounds very much like
>schadenfreude, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere
>else.

I don't have any genuine evidence for either of these, just
examples from wordlists. The files in Oxford could have more.

Best,

Jesse Sheidlower

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a few days later he clarified with this:

quote:

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Oct 19, 2002
> Jesse,
> Okay, this puzzles me a bit. I have had it pounded into my
> head that the OED is (or was) descriptivist and historical
> in nature. OED2 is loaded with nonce words from all sorts of
> obscure writers)--so either things
> have changed, or Mencken is chopped liver, which?

Well, a few things... our
standards have changed so that we'd be much less likely to
include a nonce-word now. But there can be a lot of reasons
why one would include one--for example, the word is the
sole example of a particular part of speech, but other parts
of speech exist and the nonce example supports or sheds light
on it in an interesting way.

> And while I'm there, can you explain to me the difference
> between a nonce-word and a hapax legomenon?

A hapax legomenon--the term is normally used only in reference
to dead languages--it a word or form that is found only once in
a given corpus (an entire language, the works of a particular
author, etc.). That's it--there's no other implication here about
its use. Often the assumption is that the word could have been
more common but the one example is all we have. Note that the
reoccurrence of the word in criticism doesn't change its status;
that is, if you say "so-and-so is a hapax in Shakespeare", your
use of "so-and-so" does not mean that you now have another
example in English and it's no longer a hapax.

A nonce-word is generally used to mean a word coined for a
specific occasion, with the implication that it's not likely to
be used again or outside a very limited range. While nonce-words
_can_ become widespread, the assumption is that they won't.

Best,

Jesse

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my assumption is that we can substitute "rare" for "nonce-word", with "rare" given the meaning(s) as posted by shufitz.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tsuwm,

Poor Jesse. He probably is tired of hearing about "epicaricacy." Here is the link of my e-mails with him.

I understand his point that it should be used in other literature before being in a dictionary, though it is my understanding that the OED has many words that are only in dictionaries. In the end, it may be subjective.

I was interested to learn that "epicaricacy" not being in the OED has nothing to do with the fact that it is "etymologically malformed." In the past on this site I think that had been one reason given.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

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the OED has many words that are only in dictionaries.

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mantled - cloaked with the mantle of invisibility

-mikey (our standards have changed) mantled