Re: Last word in the dictionary
From: | Amber Adams <amber@...> |
Date: | Thursday, August 16, 2001, 18:43 |
Given the processes of change and borrowing and such in languages, I'm curious
what your definition of a "real word" is. :)
As for the last word bit, mine is "hvai," from the Oxford Hindi-English
Dictionary (R.S. McGregor). It uses Sanskrit order, of course. "hvai"
is, as far as i can tell, an archaic form of "hua" (became).
On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 05:21:25PM -0400, David Peterson wrote:
> In a message dated 8/15/01 8:39:24 AM, zsau@YAHOO.COM.AU writes:
>
> << zzz /z@z/ n. Colloq. a sleep. [from the convention used, esp. by
> cartoonists, to represent sleep or the sound of snoring] >>
>
> Not a real word, though. Taking a clue from the literary magazine by the
> same name, "zyzzyva", "any of various tropical American weevils of the genus
> Zyzzyva, often destructive to plants".
>
> -David