Can you help re-write The Oxford English Dictionary?

Well, hbg, I certainly did not know that. Hey, who knows. Perhaps I was a pig in a former life. I have been discussing karma with my friend, Mr. Patel, and it is quite interesting.

smorgs, it's difficult to add words to the OED if one does not know what is already there.

letty :
i used to belong to 'the book-of-the-month club' -in my younger :wink:
years .
so one year the bonus was the 'compact edition of the OED' - of course i absolurely had to have it .
it consists of two books , each weighing about 15(!) pounds , it's in 'microprint' , so it came with a big magnifying glass (!) for reading the entries .
if i need any exercise , all i have to do is look up a word like 'chitterling' and i've had my exercise for the day .
at one time i actually thought i would read the whole OED - there are certainly a lot of interesting entries - but i got wiser as i got older - i think .
hbg

We have a lot of tripe around these parts, that being a key ingredient of menudo... sold in the international market here all nicely cleaned. That reminds me of a Calvin Trillin article in the New Yorker on doing his own tripe from scratch... very funny story at the time, some years ago.

Reminds me, tangent, of the day Diane and I walked from the Met Museum, I think, down to 47th Street and met Roberta at Pierre au Tunnel, a french bistro in the theater district in NYC. Well, 'tis my way to order something I don't usually cook, so I ordered a nice big bowl of tripe soup, whatever name they gave it.

I later found out it wasn't a dumb order, as it's their specialty or so it was written in a NY guide book. Anyway, I made it about 1/3 the way through the bowl: not that it was horrible, but too much of one thing. I recovered with a blueberry tart of some kind.

I'll look in to see this thread, sounds interesting.

Well, thanks, to hbg, I did take a peek at his explanation and found this:

chitterlings
[CHIHT-lihnz; CHIHT-lingz] Popular in American Southern cooking, chitterlings are the small intestines of freshly slaughtered pigs. The word itself comes from the Middle English chiterling, a derivative of the Old English cieter ("intestines"). And, although properly called "chitterlings," the more common usage is chitlins, the casual version of which is chitts; slang terms include Kentucky oysters and wrinkled steak. Chitlins must be thoroughly cleaned in order to remove all fecal matter and bacteria. This labor-intensive process, which requires turning the intestines inside out, can take hours. Once cleaned, chitterlings must be simmered until tender (2 to 3 hours), a process that emits a detestable stench. They can then be broiled, barbecued, added to soups, battered and fried or used as a sausage casing. Chitlins have a chewy texture and an extremely high fat content (24 grams per 3-ounce serving).

Confession. I never ate one single chitterling in my life.

Hmmm. Hey, smorgs, how about chow chow and lace cornbread.

hamburger, If I get started on something, it's hard to let go, but I'm with you. I think I will let go now

we noticed today that the butcher in our supermarket had quite a load of fresh , whole hams for sale - quite inexpensive , only 99 c a pound .

couldn't quite figure out why suddenly there should be so many hams for sale .

next we noticed a small freezer full of 'natural casings' .

we have quite a few italian and portuguese families living in our city and we remembered that they still like making their own sausages at least once a year - usually it's grandma and grandpa .

there was the answer !
hbg

bajadero

are there perhaps too many words in OED ?

from a short article in the "queen's gazette" , the newpaper of our university :

banished words in 2007
---------------------------
lake superior state university has announced its 32nd annual 'list of words exiled from the queen's english' for misuse , overuse , and general uselessness .
among the exiled words are combined celebrity names , such as BrAngelina or TomKat ;
also anything beginning with 'i' , such as ; iPod , iTunes , iFilm .
good move imo (probably banned also ) .
hbg