A forver evolving collection. Here are a selction of wonderful quotes about dictionaries, some of our favourite and most woderful words to be found in the dictionary, plus some new words created by Askewness
The Oxford English Corpus (OEc) contains over 2.1 billion words of 21st Century English, and is the rererence source for the Oxford English Dictionary. The OEC includes a wide variety of writing samples, such as literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, blogs, chat logs, and emails. From this, the most common words are derived. These are as follows
Most common Noun = time
Most Common Verb = be
Most Common Adjective = good
Most common Preposition = to
Most common other = time
Note: Other includes pronouns, possessives, articles, modal verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.
Of the 2.1 billion words, and in the spirit of less is more, those five top words give us the ultimate message
" The time to be good ".
I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. Steven Wright
If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know? Steven Wright
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. Jean Cocteau
Every time I have to look up a word in the dictionary, I'm delighted. Vivienne Westwood
The trouble with the dictionary is that you have to know how a word is spelled before you can look it up to see how it is spelled. Will Cuppy
It is important that we realize that words have meanings far beyond the dictionary definition. Dan Levy
In British English. Noun. The state of being askew. Wonky. Tilted to the side. On a skew. Askance. Skew-whiff. A noun is a word that names something, such as a person, place, thing, or idea.
The activity or process of selecting, organising, diaplaying and preserving the items in a collection or exhibition, typically using professional or expert knowledge.
Flâneur is a French term used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to identify an observer of modern urban life. Baudelaire identified the flâneur in his essay The Painter of Modern Life. (1863) as the dilettante observer, urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace. O ne who walks to observe and enjoy rather than to get somewhere.
Disposition to, or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, consideration or thoughtfulness. A sense of propriety.
Haberdashery are items for sewing, such as cloth, buttons, zips, and thread, which are sold in a haberdasher's shop
The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. 1754: coined by Horace Walpole, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip, the title of a fairy tale in which the heroes were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.
The strange wistfulness of used bookshops. From the The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig. An ongoing collection of invented words, each representing an attempt to find a word to fit a concept for which our vocabulary is currently lacking
The justopistion of possibly and probababilty, in such a way that someting possible hold sway in causality discussions, over a thing or things which are more probably.
The reframing of parenting when chilren turn 18 and become adults, where the practical aspects are then considered hotelier in scope and nature.