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Dictionary (OED) Rejects: Which Words Got Left Out Of The Oxford English Dictionary?

First Posted: 08/09/10 05:09 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 06:20 PM ET

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aolnews.com:

Ever engaged a freegan in nonversation, or does the very idea make you want to precuperate? If you haven't a clue what we're talking about, don't worry, you're probably not xenolexic.

Read the whole story: aolnews.com

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10:49 AM on 08/10/2010
The list apparently includes "earworm" (Google: About 817,000 results). Has anybody actually NOT heard or made use of that "non-word"?

And do any British readers remember "Call My Bluff"? An entire long-running TV game show based on OED words? All of the words were so obscure and unmemorable that even as the closing credits were rolling you'd still have no memory of ever encountering them, and no clue as to what they meant - but a good time was had by all, which is what really matters. Would a dictionary which accepts qeach, strongle, ablewhacket and hickboo, and there are thousands of others where they came from, would such a dictionary really reject earworm? Would it really reject any word on the grounds that nobody is using it, or even on the grounds that nobody *has* ever used it?
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