Oxford University Press 'has archive of non-words'
5th August 2010
An archive of words that have not been included in the
Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) has been used as part of
a university project.
Kingston University student Luke Ngakane found out about Oxford
University Press' vault of 'failed words' when working on his
graphic design degree and decided to contact the organisation.
'This storeroom contains millions of words and some of them date
back hundreds of years. It's a very hush, hush vault and I really
struggled to find out information about it because it is so
secretive,' he explained
Mr Ngakane was sent a selection of words by Oxford University
Press and used 39 of them in his printing project.
Among the words held in the archive are 'espacular' (something
that is especially spectacular), 'nonversation' (a pointless
conversation) and 'wurfing' (using the internet when working).
Fiona McPherson, senior editor of the OED's new words
group, added that the words are not 'rejects' and could be included
in the dictionary if they enter into common usage.
At the end of 2009, Oxford University Press announced that its
word of the year was 'unfriend', which means to remove someone from
a friend list on a social networking website.