March 6, 2007
A CONTEST LEXIPHANE CAN GET BEHIND
What better place than The New York Public Library to hold the finals of the National Vocabulary Championship––an event pitting young lexiphanes from across the country against each other to see whose lexicon was largest. Robert Marsland of Madison, WI was the eventual winner after correctly identifying the latin root of the word solipsism (solus).
The article in The New York Times goes out of its way to shoehorn in as many abstruse words as possible, making it most easily read with a dictionary open beside you. Fortunately, the Times does have a great feature that aids in overcoming recondite references. Highlight any word in the body of the article's text and then Alt-Click on it; a small window will appear providing a definition. The author of the article may have overextended his lexical abilities, as well as those of his editors, when he included the word "nidicoulous" (def: reared for a time in a nest). According to Merriam-Webster, that word is spelled without the first "u", as "nidicolous". And no, I did not know that before looking it up.
[via Gothamist.com]
Tagged: contest, error, kids, library, new york times, nyc, vocabularyPosted by Lexiphane at March 6, 2007 12:58 PM
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