Thursday, October 26, 2006

Addenda

When I was like six years old I went to a school where they made me buy a little dictionary, and in particular, the Little Oxford Dictionary from Clarendon Press, and in particularly particular, the new 4th edition.  With addenda.  This has turned out to be the coolest little dictionary in the world.  It’s about 3x4, hardbound in blue, and it’s got most all the words you will ever actually need to look up in a non-technical environment.  It’s been in steady use since I got it. 

It strives to be concise and to include all words in common discourse.  I’ve often been impressed by its breadth.  For such a little book, it has quite a lot of words in it.  And of course after so many years I do have my favorites, but many of the best of those are from among the ones in the Addenda section - those that just recently “qualified for inclusion.” I’m not sure what that qualification process consisted of, but here is a list of:

18 of the 129 Words Appearing as Addenda to the first printing of the 4th Edition of the Little Oxford Dictionary (1969)

addictive: (a) causing addiction.

admass: (n) part of community easily influenced by mass communication.

afromosia: (n) ornamental African wood used for furniture.

ALGOL: (n) algebraic computer language.

benzedrine: (n) drug inhaled as stimulant etc. P.

bongo drum: (n) one of pair of small drums played with fingers.

breathalyzer: (n) device for testing amount of alcohol in breath. breathalyze: (v.t.) test with this.

cannabis: (n) preparation of Indian hemp, esp. for smoking.

COBOL: (n) computer language using common English terms.

D.J.: (abbr) disc-jockey.

enantiomorph: (n) either of two forms each related to the other as object and its mirror image.

flexagon: (n) folded-paper polygon, esp. hexagon, that can be made by further folding and unfolding to reveal different faces.

FORTRAN: (n) computer language for programming scientific problems.

hallucinogenic: (a) (esp. of drugs) inducing hallucination.

hippy: (sl.) person (appearing to be) given to use of hallucinogenic drugs; hipster.

hipster: (2nd def., n) person alive to or following the most up-to-date fashions in dress, music, etc.

meths: (n, colloq.) methylated spirits. 

spacecraft: (n) space-ship.

Words are like perfect golden fishes - too beautiful to touch, too heavy to swim.  No, wait, that isn’t it.  I don’t know what words are like. Sorry.