Welcome

Welcome to Lexonerd Sgraffiti, a new blog, written primarily by Sid Myers and Charlie Reams. And possibly directed by George Lucas.

Why does this blog exist? Insofar^+W as any blog exists, this one exists because we wanted somewhere to collect our many strange discoveries in the lexicographical world; because we're fascinated with the strange and beautiful juxtaposition of words as both semantic objects and sterile strings of letters; and because being a lexonerd is awesome and we want to talk about it. Whether anyone wants to listen remains to be seen.

The main focus of this blog is the Oxford Dictionary of English; that's the fairly substantial but one-volume edition of the Oxford range which is widely available in shops. We picked the ODE (currently on the Second Edition Revised, which is actually the third edition) because it's the dictionary used on the TV programme Countdown, and everyone likes Countdown. Whenever we talk about a word being "valid" or "in", that's specifically with reference to the ODE2r; it's not any kind of perscriptive linguistics. So don't get all bleeding-heart liberal on us.

So what are we going to post here? We're still deciding. But hopefully it'll be interesting, mind-expanding (for us if not you), and even a bit educational. And it should definitely be good for your Countdown skills. Read on with all the interest you can muster, and by all means send us your feedback on what you like and even what you don't. We might even read it.