Going... Going... Gone!

In the last couple of months we've had quite a few posts focusing on new words that are finding their way into various 21st century dictionaries and other lexicographical collections, so in the interests of providing a balanced view of the whole process of language change, here is an article from Time Magazine that looks at what happens at the 'other end' of the language change production line, so to speak. The article begins:

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 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 than a fossilized version of the
language."

But this is a controversial mission statement, as the article goes on to point out:

Here in Old Blighty, the birthplace of English, the dictionary's compilers
face 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... Collins' editors know that old words die hard — and that
some people will vilipend (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 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
database with at least six "high quality" citations, it could be spared from
the semantic dustbin.

You can read the full list of 24 words currently residing on Dictionary Death Row here. If you ask me (you didn't, but I'll say it anyway), the thought of such wanton lexicide (wonder whether that one will ever make it into the CED) is abhorrent, and must be stopped! But it's not just these 24 words that face the chop - there are loads of unfortunate lexemes that need rescuing from the clutches of the language axeman. Where, for example, would we be without the word napiform meaning 'shaped like a turnip'? And what about typtology, 'the theory that the dead communicate with the living by tapping on tables'. And, should the day come when the word hylomania bites the dust, how on earth will we ever be able to talk about 'the abnormal love of wood'? A language cull would indeed reduce the richness, the variety and - at times - the downright weirdness of the English language... and that can only be a bad thing.

So let's hear from you - which obscure words are on your top three list of vocab worth reviving?