Thursday, January 9, 2014

"saltational"?

No, not in OED, though anyone could cook up a citation and send it in...apparently the word is "saltatory." 

One then finds, in the usual way, "saltatress."  Hoping to encounter a loose woman, one who leaps from bed to bed, instead one is handed an obsolete and rare "female dancer," with only one cite, from 1784.  I wonder how they draw the line between "obs., rare" and "nonce-word"?  just one of the many vexing issues that bear critically on the future of civilisation as we know it....

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