Friday 24 November 2017

mountweazel

Taking a cue from Paul Anthony Jones celebration of forgotten words, The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities, the BBC’s Culture section has curated a selection thirty terms rescued from obscurity by a dedicated panel of academics pouring over antiquated reference materials and there’s plenty to delight and worth returning to common-parlance from all sources.
One of our new favourite ideas came with the title’s turn of phrase: like the cartographer’s phantom trap-street that were embellishments added to maps which didn’t exist and would catch plagiarists in the act, a mountweazel is a fictitious entry added to dictionary or encyclopรฆdia that would similarly expose a copy-cat researcher. The original Ms Mountweazel was given a professional calling and a tragic fate, due to an occupational hazard, and we wonder if the deterrent, if better known, might not be elaborated further and have biographical standing in her own right. Be sure to peruse the registers and let us know your new favourites and your plans to re-introduce them.