Lit Hub
In 1901, the word bondmaid was found missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. By all accounts, bondmaid was the only word to be lost from the first edition. No one knows how, and that is enough for a story, but there are other reasons I wrote The Dictionary of Lost Words.
Words, for me, have always been acquaintances rather than friends—I recognize them most of the time, but can’t always describe the detail of their features. I’m prone to mixing metaphors, and in my final year of school I had five marks taken off an exam for spelling my own name wrong. It’s not rocket surgery, but I am a long way from mastering the English language, which is a shame, because it is the only language I speak.
The irony is, that despite my clumsy handling of words, I have always loved how writing them down in a particular way can create a rhythm, or conjure an image, or express an emotion. And I have refused to leave them be.
Read the rest here
