Text VIII, for questions from 44 through 47.

Hangman, Spare That Word: The English

Purge Their Language

1 For feminists examining muliebrity (the condition of

being a woman), or soothsayers putting out their latest

vaticination (prophecy), the available lexicon may soon get

4 slimmer. The lexicographers behind Britain's Collins English

Dictionary have decided to exuviate (shed) rarely used and

archaic words as part of an abstergent (cleansing) process to

7 make room for up to 2,000 new entries. "We want the

dictionary to be a reflection of English as it is currently

spoken," says Ian Brookes, managing editor of Collins, "rather

10 than a fossilized version of the language."

Good luck with that. Here in Old Blighty, the

birthplace of English, the dictionary's compilers face

13 passionate resistance from language lovers who believe that

any cull reduces the richness and variety that make language

powerful — and leaves us all a bit dumber. "Newspapers are

16 often accused of setting their reading level for 12-year-olds,"

one opponent wrote on an online message board.

Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and

19 that some people will regard with contempt any execution

without a fair trial. So they've offered the chance of a reprieve.

They have made public 24 words that face deletion because

22 editors could find no example of their use in their database of

English-language books, newspapers, broadcasts and other

media. If, by February 2009, a word reappears in that

25 database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be

spared from the semantic dustbin. "We're looking to see if

dropping a little stone in the pond of language actually does

28 generate ripples," says Brookes.

A number of public figures in Britain have stepped

forward to champion specific words, hoping to demonstrate

31 they are compossible (possible in coexistence) with everyday

speech. Andrew Motion, Britain's poet laureate since 1999,

selected skirr, which refers to the rattling, scratchy noise that

34 a bird's wings make during flight. "It's an appealing word with

an onomatopoeic value and resonance," he said. Motion, an

avid bird watcher, has already used the word on an evening

37 radio program and hopes to include it in a poem if he can do

so without "wrenching things around too much."

But reaction to the potential axing of words has

40 revealed specialized meanings that seem to have escaped

the dictionary's compilers. David Pybus, a perfumer in

London, says agrestic's alternate meaning should qualify it for

43 preservation: "It is used," he says, "in the perfume and flavor

industry quite extensively to describe an aroma note or type

which is 'of the countryside,' such as hay, heather, forest

46 depths or meadow." Who knew? Elsewhere, fantasy-game

devotees have rushed to the defense of periapt (a charm or

amulet), which they know from the popular Dungeons &

49 Dragons game, and geologists have pointed out the utility of

griseous (streaked or mixed with gray) in describing rocks and

minerals. Apparently, one man's linguistic recrement (waste,

52 refuse) is another man's treasure.

William Lee Adams. Internet: <http://www.time.com> (adapted).