Saturday 14 May 2016

Unsustainable Growth in Collections - there's a word for it

The Oxford Dictionary Online is a store of over 600,000 words AND GROWING. Despite this large collection, they continue to bring new words into the store, and only a small proportion of these words go on display as they revise their dictionaries. As with museum collections, this growth is unsustainable, we must get rid of some words. For example getting rid of 'yes' will save me a lot of work and 'open' causes me a lot of trouble as well. However that is not the main theme of this blog. As with any museum our collections acquisition policy needs to be relevant and up to date. So here are some more recent additions to the Oxford dictionary store with their official (and museum) definitions.

1. Bling (n): Expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewellery usually the result of an excessive Heritage Lottery Grant for a museum.

2. Chillax (v): Calm down and relax. Usually needed after a KS2 visit from the local inner city school to your museum
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3. Crunk (adj): Very excited or full of energy. The KS2 visitors.
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4. D'oh (ex): Exclamation used to comment on a foolish or stupid action, especially one’s own. In reaction to allowing the KS2 school to visit.
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5. Droolworthy (adj): Extremely attractive or desirable. A common reaction to the latest Arts Council grant announcements
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6. Frankenfood (n): Genetically modified food. Usually sold in volunteer run museum cafes.
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7. Hater (n): A person who greatly dislikes a specified person or thing. a.k.a. Customer Services Manager
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8. Illiterati (n): People who are not well educated or well informed about a particular subject or sphere of activity. a.k.a museum exhibition consultants
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14. La-la Land (n): A fanciful state or dream world. Also, Los Angeles or any museum staff room
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15. Muggle (n): A person who is not conversant with a particular activity or skill. (see 8)
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16. Noob (n): A person who is inexperienced in a particular sphere or activity, especially computing or the use of the Internet. The average museum staff member, or volunteer
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17. Obvs (adv): Obviously. If you want complaints, use this in your latest exhibition interpretation
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18. OMG (ex): Used to express surprise, excitement, or disbelief. (Dates back to 1917.) but also means Out of Museum Grants
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19. Textspeak (n): Language regarded as characteristic of text messages, consisting of abbreviations, acronyms, initials, emoticons. (wut hpns win u write lyk dis.) (see 17)
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20. Truthiness (n): the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true. The average museum exhibition.
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35. Woot (ex): (Especially in electronic communication) Used to express elation, enthusiasm, or triumph. Rarely, if ever used in museums.

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