English is an evolving language. Words appear and disappear over time depending on the frequency of their use.  This partly explains why some students of English literature look at the language of Shakespeare as a foreign language. Over the past decade, the internet has contributed its fair share of new words to the lexicon in its short lived existence. Along with these new words, sites such as Urban Dictionary.com have cropped up to track and define these neologisms. Now, however, one site is turning
its eye to the past in the hopes of saving some words from extinction.

That website, Save the Words from Oxford Fajar (a subsidiary of Oxford University Press based in Malaysia), offers users the option of adopting a word that may soon be orphaned from the English language due to a lack of use. The site’s design is sleek and modern, featuring a colorful flash collage of the orphaned words that shout out phrases such as “Pick me!” when the cursor passes over them. Clicking on a word brings up a text box offering a definition and an opportunity for the user to adopt the word. (No need to rush to get the cute ones before they’re gone; there are no limits on the number of foster parents a word can have.) To adopt a word, users register as the word’s foster parent and take the following pledge: “I hereby promise to use this word, in conversation and correspondence, as frequently as possible to the best of my ability.”

After adoption, Save the Words sends a certificate to the user’s email address with the word, date, and user name inscribed in a fancy-looking font. Word foster parents who want to go the extra mile can order a t-shirt with their word on it to express their love for their newly adopted word in textile form.

Browsing the selection of words, it’s not hard to see how some words ended up in the orphan pile. It’d
be hard to faithfully say that even the most ardent word foster parent could find an opportunity to use “jumperism” (defined as “principles of a jumping Methodist sect”) without changing religions or the meaning of the original word. Other words like “long play” (vinyl phonograph records that play at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute) and “ten-cent store” (a single price-point store that sells inexpensive items) echo
technologies and economies of the past that don’t appear to be making a comeback anytime soon.

However, several of the other words could certainly gain some footing in the race against extinction with a little love and a creative mind taking up their cause. I can think of four or five times per day when I might use the noun “boreism” (behavior of a boring person). At a fast food restaurant just the other day, I found myself searching for a sinapistic (“consisting of mustard”) sauce. Perhaps it’s time that Cole Library and it’s users start throwing around our considerable weight to save these poor words from extinction.

(In the credit where credit’s due department, thanks to the über-useful blog LifeHacker for originally bringing this site to my attention.)