This forum is about questions and answers...so here is a reasonable answer about what the goal of a dictionary is and why certain, but not all, words are included (of course you all know what word I am thinking about).

quote:

So, if you want to get a word into the dictionary (now that I've just told you it's not the Word Medal of Honor), show me that people are using it. Lots of people, in lots of different places (not just online, not just in one narrow field of reference). Send me examples in context. Show me that it's important, that people need to know it to live their lives. Show me that it's a great tool, something nobody can read or write without. Then we'll add it to the stock of the store.

Makes sense to me, and by that explanation epicaricacy doesn't belong in the dictionary. It is almost always found online and mostly when referring to an English word for Schadenfreude.

Oh well. There are other battles out there that need me.

I do wonder, though, why words generally aren't removed from dictionaries. It seems to me that once they are included, that's it forever.

By the criteria set forth, half the words in an unabridged dictionary don't belong there. They are seldom used or are special jargon. The author, based on your quotation, seems to think that only what's "trendy" ought to have a place in her dictionary. That takes her overall point out of context, however. Were you to send your favorite word to her, I suspect she'd give it genuine consideration.

an English word for Schadenfreude

The English word for Schadenfreude is Schadenfreude. But, seriously, words are removed from all but the unabridged dictionaries all the time, and those occasions are usually followed by a gnashing of teeth, tearing of hair, and rending of garments.

As zmj says, words are always being removed from dictionaries. However, we don't want them to be too efficient in purging dictionaries of words no longer in use.

One of the primary uses of a dictionary is to find the meaning of unfamiliar words that we come across in our reading. If we are reading a book written a few centuries ago, we are likely to meet words no longer in use, and it might not be possible to work out the meaning by context. If it has been removed from the dictionary simply because it is no longer in use we will be frustrated.

Jargon sometimes gets into print without explanation, so we need some latitude in defining what constitutes jargon and whether it deserves to be in the dictionary. Certainly, if there is any real evidence of 'crossover' it should be included, at least in the larger dictionaries.

Here's Erin McKean's blog