Words that define themselves

You may have noticed last month that the Collins Dictionary people have added some 6,500 new words to the Scrabble word list —all generated since the last update in 2011.

If you haven’t read the fine print, you will be delighted to learn of the inclusion of such gems as “emoji,” “facetime,” “hashtag” “and “sexting,” as well as such delightful slang terms as “augh,” “blech,” “eew,” “grr,” “waah” and “yeesh.” Of particular interest to diehards will be such such potential heavy pointgetters as “geocache,” “checkbox,” “hactivist” and “thanx.” (As for me, I play Scrabble only with words I actually use, which permits me to lose gracelessly to someone who is prepared to put down “thanx” in order to secure a bonus).

That 6,500 new word total must mean that an awful lot of them are coming into public circulation for some reason. It does, and there is. According to the head of language content at Collins, one Helen Newstead, “dictionaries have always included formal and informal English, but it used to be hard to find printed evidence of the use of slang words… Now, people use slang in social media posts, tweets, blogs, comments, text messages—you name it—so there’s a host of evidence for informal varieties of English that didn’t exist before.” It seems so obvious when she puts it that way.

But if newer words, slang or otherwise, are coming into our vocabularies at a greater clip, it follows that older words are falling into disuse in greater numbers as well. Our vocabularies can’t grow endlessly. And while I am not one to argue that the onward march of civilization be stopped in its tracks, I do want to suggest that there are lots of very colourful words that we would do very well to keep by continuing to use them, even if the cost of doing so is forgoing the chance to add such statuesque words as “blech” to our vocabularies.

I don’t mean long-forgotten-but-colourful-sounding words like “wamblecropt (overcome with indigestion),” that show up in top-10 internet lists. Nor am I referring to onomatopeiac words—like “oink”—that describe the very sound they make. And I’m not recommending we use Brobdingnagian words, merely because they may appear bigger than their shortword equivalents.

I’m talking about the words that practically define themselves just by being spoken aloud, and that give, it must be said, a certain cheap pleasure in the utterance. For example, to say a meal is “scrumptious” completely communicates the fact that you have enjoyed it and eaten heartily. Similarly, “drat” neatly captures your reaction to spilling soup on the tablecloth during a fancy meal at your mother-in-law’s house (and is a higher quality choice in the circumstances than most other four-letter expletives).

Let’s keep going with the examples, and we’ll use dismissive words. If I tell you that someone is a “rapscallion,” “pipsqueak,” “finagler,” “fussbudget,” “charlatan,” “bounder,” “scalawag,” “curmudgeon,” “scofflaw,” “wiseacre,” “blowhard,” “hornswoggler” or “sycophant” (not all at once, of course: let’s talk about the Senate another time), you will get a pretty good idea of how I characterize that person, even though you may not have been familiar with the term. So in point of fact, you’re saving time in the explanation process by using a word that defines itself.

Same thing with words for rubbish, like “piffle,” “codswallop,” “tripe,” “twaddle,” “balderdash” and “gobbledegook,” or for mindless nonsense, such as “folderol,” “rigmarole” and “fooferaw.” It’s enough to give you the collywobbles, especially if you’ve been lollygagging around; unless you have already had a bit of a kerfuffle from all your gallivanting; or even become flummoxed from being mollycoddled.

You’re asking me to give those words up in favour of modern slang? Blech! I’d sooner lose at Scrabble. Although, come to think of it, perhaps “checkbox” is not such a bad word after all. Maybe I’ll add that potential bonus-getter to my vocabulary and ditch “fussbudget,” which, although it’s a prime self-defining word, is too long to use as a Scrabble word anyway. Unless it’s built on top of “fuss,” “bud,” “get,” “budge” or “budget.” In no time, I could transform into a gracious winner. That’s a reasonable compromise between principle and expediency, don’t you think?

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca