Are we incompossible?

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AUE readers may be interested in Richard Tomkins' article in the FT today: I reproduce the first paragraph below - the full article can be accessed at http://tinyurl.com/io0g
Wealth leads to linguistic poverty
By Richard Tomkins
The start of my week was enlivened by a spat on Monday morning between the editors of two rival dictionaries on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. First, the editor of the Chambers Dictionary accused the Collins English Dictionary of sacrificing standards by filling its latest edition with buzz words and pop culture references. (Examples: Britneyfication, meaning the impact on fashion of Britney Spears' schoolgirl image; and yummy mummy, an attractive woman who has had children.) Then, the Collins editor accused Chambers of pomposity by including old literary words such as incompossible ("incapable of co-existing") and beblubbered ("disfigured by weeping"), now seldom seen beyond the confines of the crossword puzzle or Scrabble board.

Laura
(emulate St. George for email)

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Okay, so this one time? In band camp? Laura was all, like:
[nq:1](Examples: Britneyfication, meaning the impact on fashion of Britney Spears' schoolgirl image; and yummy mummy, an attractive woman who has had children.)[/nq]
I've just recently learned the expression "milf" for the latter, although the concept has been familiar to me for some time...since the explanation (the second place I saw it) was in Playboy, I can only assume that the term has been everywhere else for at least eight months..r

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[nq:1]Okay, so this one time? In band camp? Laura was all, like:[/nq]
Didn't understand a word of that, but let's press on ...
[nq:2](Examples: Britneyfication, meaning the impact on fashion of Britney Spears' schoolgirl image; and yummy mummy, an attractive woman who has had children.)[/nq]
[nq:1]I've just recently learned the expression "milf" for the latter, althoughthe concept has been familiar to me for some time...since ... saw it) was in Playboy, I can only assume that the term hasbeen everywhere else for at least eight months..r[/nq]
Here in the UK I have never heard the terms "milf" or "yummy mummy".

Steve Howarth

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[nq:1]Then, the Collins editor accused Chambers of pomposity by including old literary words such as incompossible ("incapable of co-existing") and beblubbered ("disfigured by weeping"), now seldom seen beyond the confines of the crossword puzzle or Scrabble board.[/nq]
This is the sort of swipe made at Scrabble by someone who knows nothing about the game. Both "incompossible" and "beblubbered" are far too long to have featured in a realistic Scrabble game, and, since there are only two Bs in a set, "beblubbered" needs both blanks, making it even more unlikely.
It's also an odd charge to make. The Chambers editor (I assume Ian Brookes) accused the Collins editor of including ephemeral words (and it's even possible that he was correct in doing so). The Collins editor seems to accuse Ian of retaining words from the previous edition, something of which he should be proud.
It's even odder in that the new edition of The Chambers Dictionary hasn't officially been published yet. Amazon were quoting a publication date of 2003-09-15, and I've seen another source claim 2003-08-07. It is available in some shops, of course.

Graeme Thomas

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[nq:1]Okay, so this one time? In band camp? Laura was all, like:[/nq]
[nq:2](Examples: Britneyfication, meaning the impact on fashion of Britney Spears' schoolgirl image; and yummy mummy, an attractive woman who has had children.)[/nq]
[nq:1]I've just recently learned the expression "milf" for the latter, although the concept has been familiar to me for some ... it) was in Playboy, I can only assume that the term has been everywhere else for at least eight months..r[/nq]
"milf" is just a cruder form of the original "mimsa" - Mother I Might Seduce Anon.
Which of course is merely an updated form of the Chaucerian Mother I Might Seduce Yclept - or mimsy.
Jitze

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[nq:2]Then, the Collins editor accused Chambers of pomposity by including ... beyond the confines of the crossword puzzle or Scrabble board.[/nq]
[nq:1]This is the sort of swipe made at Scrabble by someone who knows nothing about the game. Both "incompossible" and ... a publication date of 2003-09-15, and I've seen another source claim 2003-08-07. It is available in some shops, of course.[/nq]
This argument links to a phenomenon I don't think I'm imagining: the deliberate bloating of concise dictionaries. For example, COD9 has ***+1674 pp against COD5's xvi+1558 pp in a smaller format; and it seems to me that COD9 goes out of its way to make itself longer than necessary, presumably to give users a reassuring sense of value-for-money comprehensive bulkiness. I feel this may be a marketing thing, not a usefulness thing: just as my telephone must be smaller than your telephone, so my small dictionary must to be desirable be bigger than your small dictionary.
I suggest that the 21st-century Collins (***+1785+printed endpapers) by printing in a larger format has in effect announced that an upper size limit has been reached (or nearly reached) for the everyday non-specialist English dictionary. These volumes will, if I'm right, soon begin to shed content quite conspicuously in order to keep within this intuitive limit.
Note that for a new dictionary to get talked about in the mass media it has to make controversial or otherwise remarkable inclusions; and getting talked and preferably argued about in public is an important part of any sales campaign.
I wonder, too, whether the bloating, if it's really happening, is related to the quite unnecessary length of many present-day novels.

Mike.

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[nq:2]Okay, so this one time? In band camp? Laura was all, like:[/nq]
[nq:1]Didn't understand a word of that, but let's press on ...[/nq]
Hint: "American Pie" (the movie).
This may have just been the funniest "wrote in message" lead-in that I have every seen.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Which of course is merely an updated form of the Chaucerian Mother I Might Seduce Yclept - or mimsy.[/nq]
'Yclept' means 'named' where I come from.
"Mother I might seduce named" makes no sense.
If instead it was just supposed to be a humorous Alice reference, then I fear your meaning of 'humorous' differs from mine too.
Phil

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