Roots
All the world’s a stage
Deepti

Looking at the people around us, we notice different stages of growth. Often, Shakespeare’s seven ages of man come to mind. Beginning with infants and ending with the aged, the continuum of life yields a range of variety. The linguist’s categorisation of ‘dead’ and ‘living’ language reminds us that the words in our world are also located along such a spectrum; there are obsolete or dead words, coinages or infant words and middle-aged words firmly ensconced in dictionaries, smug in their placing.

The editors at Collins are these days engaged in a bravery that the world does not know about. They are trying to save 24 rarely used words from a fate worse than death by including them in the next edition of the dictionary.

Space is a major constraint because the team has to create space for 2000 neologisms as well. If you have a vivid imagination, imagine the angst of a word that is fighting for survival, i.e., a place in the dictionary. These words under threat include abstergent (cleansing), caducity (senility), faticidal (prophetic) and recrement (waste matter). Celebrities and wordsmiths are stepping forward to put these words into circulation in order to save them.

In a similar fashion, neologisms are newly born babies struggling to survive in a cruel world. In her latest book Next Now, Marian Salzman introduces 10 such words that she thinks display future trends and deserve to be a part of the lexicon. ‘She-E-O’ is one such word, coined along the lines of CEO. A She-E-O is the career woman who balances her work and personal life with great help from her personal trainer, pet sitter and executive mentor. From the earlier ‘philanthropy’ comes ‘unilanthropy’ that refers to picking up a niche cause and pursuing it whole-heartedly, just like Maneka Gandhi and her ‘People for animals’ cause.

And of course, how can one forget the middle-aged, sturdy words and people who keep the show running? Just look at the words that hold this piece together and you will find your reliable grannies, uncles and siblings who oil the wheels of life.