January 15, 2010
Won’t you help save the words?
“Honey, we’re out of bananas.”
“No problem. I’m heading to the oporopolist this afternoon.”
“Great. … Huh?”
Have you visited your neighborhood oporopolist lately? Maybe you have and you don’t even know it. You see, “oporopolist” means “fruit-seller”—and it’s my newly adopted word.
I recently took in oporopolist from savethewords.org, a Web site sponsored by Oxford Fajar, a subsidiary of Oxford University Press. Save The Words’ purpose is to keep words from being dropped from the English language because, according to the site, 90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words. That’s a pretty grim statistic for a linguaphile like me.
So, why oporopolist? Well, I was in the process of choosing between latibule (n. hiding place), quaeritate (v. to ask), and radicarian (adj. pertaining to the roots of words), when oporopolist literally yelled out at me (note to site users: turn on your speakers!). It sounded so desperate, that I just had to adopt the little guy. Plus, I love the staccato sound of “op-or-op-olist.” It’s so fun to say!
With its ransom note-like background and witty copywriting, savethewords.org is a great place to spend some time and learn something new. I especially enjoyed the “spread the word” page, which contains amusing ideas on how to keep your adopted word alive, such as wear it on a sandwich board on your lunch hour or use it as a unique name for your pet.
Although I will not be getting an “oporopolist” tattoo, per my adoption pledge, I promise to use this word in conversation and correspondence as frequently as possible.
“Anybody hungry? I’ll make a run to the oporopolist. …”
What word will you save?
Filed by rebecca at 11:54 am under For the love of words
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