On 2012-09-13 16:48:21 +0000, Ed Cryer said:
> Johannes Patruus wrote:
>> On 13/09/2012 08:37, Evertjan. wrote:
>>> Johannes Patruus wrote on 12 sep 2012 in alt.language.latin:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry:showfullentry/true?t:ac=Entry/13
>>>> 2959
>>>
>>>
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/132959
>>>
>>> Both seem only to be available with a OED
>>> or a public library account number.
>>
>> Each "Word of the Day" is freely viewable only on the Day of which it is
>> the Word, which, for oscitation, on the day of writing this, is yesterday.
>>
>> Today's today's word is bereft of Latin etymology -
>>
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/257943
>>
>
> Foaf indeed!
>
> What does it take to get a word in the OED? Something like a formal
> application together with a couple of citations in respectable
> broadsheets?
No, just the citations. If people use a word in writing, and it's
clearly not a case of a foreign word drafted for temporary ad-hoc
service, then it goes in. (Which reminds me that I've got to find a
source for the word "nap" in the theatrical sense, which the OED
incorrectly thinks to be obsolete.)
> It reminds me of the Catholic Church searching high and low to get
> Thomas Aquinas into sainthood. You needed two attested miracles. The
> first was easy enough; the usual opening up of the coffin 6 months post
> eius mortem, and a sweet smell coming out. It took ages to get the
> second until some bright spark remembered the fishes. When Thomas had
> been lying ill someone asked him what he wanted to eat, and he replied
> "some fresh herrings". They had none, but lo! a knock came on the door
> and it was a pedlar selling salted fish. They asked him to open his
> baskets and one was full of herrings.
Although both of these are in the record, a good many other miracles of
the more ordinary kind were introduced in the hearing.
--
John W Kennedy
"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump
of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that
because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in
the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear
I can't see it that way."
-- The last words of Bat Masterson