Posted on February 16, 2012 with 5,473 notes.
Tagged with Collective nouns, words, life as i know it, .
Tagged with Collective nouns, words, life as i know it, .
About two weeks ago, my friends and I wrote to Oxford English Dictionary to add a collective noun. Let me know what you think:
To whom it may concern:
Several months ago, we stumbled upon an entertaining yet substantial etymological question. We were discussing Middle English and came across the word “slut”. We were intrigued by the vast difference between the word’s popular use now and its uses in the fifteenth century. While reading up on the history of the word on your database we were informed that the word was defined as, in at least one text, “a kitchen-maid” around the 1450s. This discovery brought us to the reason that we are contacting you now: we would like to recommend that you set the collective noun for a group of sluts to “scullery”. Just as a group of turtles is a “bale”, we hope that you might accept a group of sluts (or sluttish women) to be a scullery. We believe that this is a testament to the word’s old and venerable connection to the kitchen. Please do not dismiss this request as juvenile hijinks, but rather take it as a sincere attempt to improve the English language. We hope to hear from you at your convenience.