Mind your language | 4 September 2010

Newspapers recently carried reports of a ‘secret vault’ at the Oxford English Dictionary containing words rejected for inclusion.

Newspapers recently carried reports of a ‘secret vault’ at the Oxford English Dictionary containing words rejected for inclusion. Well, I suppose one way of keeping a secret is to publish it in a work of reference, for the OED explains that its ‘Quotations Room contains thousands of words for which we have only a single example, many of them dating back decades or even centuries: usurance has been awaiting a second example since 1912, and abrasure since 1827!’