Comment Central: Which word would you save? Vote now

It may appear agrestic to ask, but The Times is calling on its readers to come to the rescue of words that risk fading into caliginosity.

Dictionary compilers at Collins have decided that the word list for the forthcoming edition of its largest volume is embrangled with words so obscure that they are linguistic recrement. Such words, they say, must be exuviated abstergently to make room for modern additions that will act as a roborant for the book.

Readers who vilipend the compilers’ decision and vaticinate that society will be poorer without little-used words have been offered a chance to save them from the endangered list Collins, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, has agreed that words will be granted a reprieve if evidence of their popularity emerges before February, when the word list is finalised.

Times readers can help to lift the malison on their favourite word by voting for it at the Comment Central weblog on Times Online, which will use its influence to persuade the public that the winning word is compossible with everyday speech.

Some words on the 24-strong list will also have a lucky periapt in the form of a celebrity champion, who will attempt to overcome their word’s caducity by using it in speeches, articles and on television.

Stephen Fry has chosen fubsy, which describes some of the contestants on QI, the quiz show that he presents. He may be able to persuade scriptwriters of Kingdom, the drama in which he plays the eponymous solicitor, to include the word in its third series.

Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, will support skirr, a word he has occasionally used to describe the sound of beating wings. “I’m a very keen bird-watcher,” he told The Times. “Birders do use this word from time to time so I thought it might have a better chance than others, such as vilipend. I saw 10,000 knot flying over The Wash in the evening recently and the noise they made was a skirring noise.”

He intends to use the word in his poetry, but Collins has given warning that it is not enough for the words to be used by their champions alone. Endangered words must appear at least six times in Collins’s corpus, a database that records word usage in printed, broadcast and online media.

Compilers will discount any references to words if they appear in articles about the campaign to save them.

Motion intends to enlist the help of the two million subscribers to the magazine of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: “My cunning plan to get the word out is to get birders to use it. I feel reasonably optimistic.”

Vince Cable, the griseous-haired Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, hopes to revive niddering by using it in his speeches. “It has a sort of withering contempt about it that is useful for political invective,” he said. “There will be plenty of opportunities to use it in parliamentary debates on the Government’s handling of the economy, and I will be looking for fresh ways to describe the policies of messers Cameron and Brown.”

Other champions include the Times writer Philip Howard, who apologises in advance to readers of his Modern Times etiquette column for any confusion caused by his use of fatidical. Christine Bleakley, the only champion to exhibit muliebrity, has also agreed to take part, alongside Adrian Chiles, her co-presenter on the One Show on BBC One. They respectively intend to use oppugnant and embrangle in their broadcasts.

Stephen Pound, the Labour MP for Ealing North, will campaign for caliginosity by ensuring that it appears in Hansard, the parliamentary record, and letters to his constitutents.

Words without champions will rely on Times readers, who will have to decide whether words such as mansuetude are sufficiently nitid to save, or too olid to contemplate.

Cormac McKeown, senior editor for Collins’s English dictionaries, said that he wanted to squeeze in as many words as possible but the influx of 2,000 new words meant there was not enough space. “We’ve been fiddling around with the typeface to try to get more in, but it is at saturation point. There is a trade-off between getting them in and legibility.”

The champions face a formidable task to persuade the public to follow their example, but at least one will be successful if they apply themselves. After all, the inclusion of each word in this article suggests that their usefulness is apodeictic.

Will you vote to save them? Some of the words heading for extinction

Abstergent Cleansing or scouring

Agrestic Rural; rustic; unpolished; uncouth

Apodeictic Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration

Caducity Perishableness; senility

Caliginosity Dimness; darkness

Compossible Possible in coexistence with something else

Embrangle To confuse or entangle

Exuviate To shed (a skin or similar outer covering)

Fatidical Prophetic

Fubsy Short and stout; squat

Griseous Streaked or mixed with grey; somewhat grey

Malison A curse

Mansuetude Gentleness or mildness

Muliebrity The condition of being a woman

Niddering Cowardly

Nitid Bright; glistening

Olid Foul-smelling

Oppugnant Combative, antagonistic or contrary

Periapt A charm or amulet

Recrement Waste matter; refuse; dross

Roborant Tending to fortify or increase strength

Skirr A whirring or grating sound, as of the wings of birds in flight

Vaticinate To foretell; prophesy

Vilipend To treat or regard with contempt

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