Save the words! Join the campaign!
This is serious. Christine, Adrian, and the English language, needs your help. The One Show hosts are backing a campaign to get two words saved from oblivion. Dictionary compilers say that the words Embrangle (meaning to confuse or entangle) and Oppugnant (meaning antagonistic or contrary) are no longer used enough to warrant a place in their dictionary.
So, Christine will be championing Oppugnant and Adrian will be attempting to popularise Embrangle. They'll be using them in their broadcasts - but they also need to show wider evidence of the popularity of their chosen words.
Please show your support by adding a comment below, which contains the words in an inventive manner. Please, also, send us links to uses of the word online - be it written, audio or video. Any evidence much appreciated!
Your efforts might get you a mention on The One Show. Thank you, and please add your name and location to comments so that we know who to credit.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~16~RS~)
Comments
I am frequently embrangled in a torrent of oppugnance by the abuse of the word prolific on a regular basis by the BBC.
It means 'abundantly creative' so please don't use it to describe frequently homicidal russian serial killers or Britain's busiest burglar. It is ok if a little OTT to use it to describe frequent goal scorers Adrian.
Serial killing and burglarly are by definition un-creative!
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I am frequently embrangled in a torrent of oppugnance by the abuse of the word prolific on a regular basis by the BBC.
It means 'abundantly creative' so please don't use it to describe frequently homicidal russian serial killers or Britain's busiest burglar. It is ok if a little OTT to use it to describe frequent goal scorers Adrian.
Serial killing and burglarly are by definition un-creative!
Alan Penrith
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To save words in the English language from extinction? What a brilliant idea especially since our embrangled Prime Minister, when the so-called 'good' Chancellor, sold all our gold bullion - one of the nation's other greatest assests. The word will always be mightier than the sword (whatever Blair and Bush told us) and so let us all join The One Show and become mightily oppugnant in defence of every single one of them! Rock on and keep embrangling, Adrian and Christine, and in this regard never let your oppugnance desert you!
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If you wish to save long english words like "embrangled" and "oppugnance" then you are could be accused of "sesquipedalianism" and should also be trying to re-introduce this word into everyday language. Incidently this is probably one of the biggest faults in public speaking, a topic also discussed on the programme.
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I think that Christine should try and use 'oppugnant' if she gets any criticism from the judges on Strictly Come Dancing. I feel that it is a particularly apt description of Craig Revel-Horrid.
Whilst on the subject of words, I do wish that BBC Newsreaders would stop using the phrase 'mass exodus'. 'Exodus' means the departure of a large number of people and so 'mass exodus' is tautological.
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Just to prove that occasionally men, like women, can do two things at once, I have combined a contribution to Save the Words and to Poetry as follows:
It's so easy to embrangle
Words that many tend to mangle
Such as 'prostrate' for your 'prostate'
Or that awful sound 'sustificate'
For what should be just 'certificate'
I find mistakes like this repugnant
Does this make me sound oppugnant?
Let the One Show sit in judgement
Richard, Potters Bar, Herts
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As if diction compilers aim to rid the world of embrangled when someone like George Berkeley used it to sum up philosophy,
"Whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly, and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties."
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I am totally oppugnant to the use of the phrase "nearly (or almost or quite) unique". It is embrangling. "Unique" means exactly that. There are no degrees of uniqueness. If it is not unique, then choose another word, such as rare or uncommon.
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I am totally oppugnant to the use of the phrase "nearly (or almost or quite) unique". It is embrangling. "Unique" means exactly that. There are no degrees of uniqueness. If it is not unique, then choose another word, such as rare or uncommon.
Shirley Pettit from Somerset
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Congratulations on your campaign to save words in the English language.
Perhaps you would consider a campaign to eliminate or at least reduce the excessive use of 'you know' and 'I mean' and other such meaningless expressions.
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Great idea this one - using such terminology could embrangle the average Sun Reader to the point of oppugnancy. Perhaps best if the Beeb sticks to its usual unintelligible single syllable language to be honest.
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I find myself increasingly oppugnant to mispronunciations. Will somebody please tell Dom that the word research is pronounced risserch with the stress on the second syllable and the name of the letter H is aitch, not haitch!
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Embrangle and oppugnant are inkhorn words I fear
And if they vanish from the scene I will not shed a tear
I'm sorry to disappoint that handsome, witty pair
Both the one that's pert and pretty and the one that's debonair
Has Adrian ever been described as 'pert and pretty' before or, indeed, debonair?
Barry Bolland, Whitnash, Leamington Spa.
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I'm often embrangled and totally oppugnant. Just one word covers both...that's me. JULIE!! Southampton.
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I get very oppugnant about the word "prat" as I was told, at an early age, not to use it as it refers to the female genitalia.
I am, therefore, completely embrangled as to why it is allowed to be used on day time t.v.
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I have a rather oppugnant little sister!
this link is to dictionary.com: Dictionary.com
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As a regularly embrangled oppugnant I would just like to point out that oppugnant is also a noun!
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I find A Levels to be very embrangling and hard. Why is it such a huge step up from is GCSE's to A Levels? My head is already bursting to the seams with information and I'm only 3 weeks into the courses.
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I was so inspired - I wrote you a poem :)
A Sad Embranglement!
Today I sat upon the floor.
Turned out my basket's woolly store.
A coat I hoped to knit myself,
in many colours, to keep my health.
A million threads, all in a tangle.
In knots soon did I myself embrangle!
Where one thread started I could not tell
as deeper embrangled I soon fell.
I cursed the brightly coloured wool.
Cursed myself more for such a fool.
No scissors in the basket found,
and none at home to hear my sound.
As deeper, stronger the thread did hold,
I knew this winter I'd just stay cold!
Jayne Scott in Eastbourne
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EMBRANGLE
http://vodkasoda.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/the-vilipending-of-embrangle-words-in-danger-of-being-lost-forever/
http://channels.ourmedia.org/tags/embrangle
http://www.logosconjugator.org/owa-verb/verba_dba.verba_en.select_page?query_verba=embrangle
OPPUGNANT
http://thethunderdragon.co.uk/2008/09/im-oppugnant.htm
http://www.lexic.us/definition-of/oppugnant
Sure you've already found these yourselves but just thought I'd pop them in for good luck. Onward the battle :)
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For a French guy like me, it is difficult not to be entangled in these - beautiful - english words to preserve, but I think this is not oppugnant with my passion for words, English or French, whatever they are, we have to use and cherish them. By the way, mine is nubivagant (on Save The Words)- moving throughout or among clouds -, which is far more uneasy to use in a conversation! Thank you.
Veronique from http://rabuteau.blog.ouestjob.com/
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People always seek to embrangle me with oppugnant gibberish.
This is oppugnant prejudice against the genius minority group. Such oppugnance kept me embrangled for twenty years and seriously damaged my health.
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I am embrangled that bidis is no longer in use as a word. It is oppugnant that it only refers to cigarettes nowadays. When I was a child it was regularly used. I believe Keith Waterhouse used it in Billy Liar.
The occasional police officer on the television bears this as a name and I do recall accountants, humourously called Bidis and Brown. This reference may embrangle you and could be oppugnant.
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It is oppugnant and rather embrangles me when people rubbish inteligence and the tests.
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It is oppugnant and rather embrangles me when people rubbish intelligence and the tests.
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So really embrangle
Derives from entangle
And the word oppugnant
Is not far from repugnant
Relates to pugnacious
So those must be audacious
Who actin this way
On a out-of-control day
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