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Fred Ludowyk

Fred Ludowyk reviews 'Cheerio Tom, Dick and Harry: Despatches from the hospice of fading words' by Ruth Wajnryb

September 2007, no. 294 08 November 2022
Fred Ludowyk reviews 'Cheerio Tom, Dick and Harry: Despatches from the hospice of fading words' by Ruth Wajnryb
This is a book about words that are on their way to the dictionary cemetery where they will be stamped with the labels ‘archaic’ or ‘obsolete’. Of course, unlike us, these dying words will achieve a kind of eternity through being permanently displayed in dictionaries, but the time will come when no living person possesses them as part of their actual speech. Ruth Wajnryb proposes that a ho ... (read more)