Dear Mr Press
Before I start I feel I should give you a friendly word of warning. I recently purchased a dictionary from your arch rivals the Cambridge University Press. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the words in there are remarkably similar to the ones in your own book. They even have put them in the same order! If I were you I should get your copyright lawyers on the case straight away.
Anyway, onto the main point of my letter. I hereby submit my proposal for a new word for the next edition of your dictionary. As you can see it covers a function in the language which is currently left unserved.
Disglightful
adjective. [dis-glahyt-fuhl]A simultaneously revolting and charming moment. Example of use: Evan pulled the soggy half eaten lump of bread from his mouth, let it pause on his snot covered upper lip, then gently and lovingly tried to feed it to his father. “Disglightful” thought Dan.
I look forward to receiving my first royalty check with anticipation
Yours sincerely
Dan Hughes BA(hons) BSc(hons) RMN.
Age 31 â…”
on Oct 19th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
“Disglightful” will be put into regular usage in our household…how brilliant you Brits can be! I feel certain that your word will be in the next OED, and you will be raking in the loot.
on Oct 19th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Sounds like a portmanteau to me =)
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 12:45 am
“Tried” to feed it to his father? You mean you didn’t eat it? What kind of heathen father are you?
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 5:15 am
That’s great! I’ll use it with love.
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Fast forward 40 years - you’ve lost whatever marbles you used to have and are sitting in one of those shackleton chairs that all good nursing homes employ for the use of their residents, its lunchtime, you have no teeth, you cannot digest solids, Evan is trying his best to keep the old man alive in this hell hole of a central government sponsored waiting room to oblivion…
It all makes perfect sense now doesn’t it ?
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 10:19 am
I think a word which can be applied to childhood generally.
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Do children actually do things like that?
What strange creatures…
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
You will have to be patient with Oxford. I believe they are in the midst of making the final decision with regard to the your/you’re issue. Personally, I would rather eat a whole loaf of snotty bread than concede to the ‘your’ camp on this.
on Oct 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Of course there will have to be an American English word to counter, something like grossweet. That’s the best I can do on short notice and lack of university degree.
on Oct 21st, 2007 at 7:07 am
[...] I stole this idea from here so please don’t tell the real Dan! The Brits still haven’t gotten over the whole David [...]
on Oct 22nd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I assume you already submitted “jealighted?”
on Oct 22nd, 2007 at 6:14 pm
that certainly is a disglightful moment if ever there has been one.
on Oct 25th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I love it when my friendly neighborhood bloggers teach me new things….like goofy vocabulary! I’ll send my instructional check expeditiously!