ROSS

Ross Halford
Nov 20, 2015
4 min read

Oxford Dictionary have released their Word of the Year and it is...... well, to put it bluntly it's not a word but a stupid little picture, emoticon, or to use the now official term, emoji (does anyone use that word?) In fact whilst writing emoji the red squiggly line of Microsoft Word appeared below it, (emoticon didn't) with no suitable suggestions when right clicked on.

Now, for someone who loves words I have come to learn to not to take the Oxford Dictionary chief academicals, or whoever else for that matter hired by Oxford Dictionary, seriously. in 2007 they searched for the favourite word in use in the British Isles and the winner was, Serendipity. I don't have a problem with that, it's a nice word, it rolls off the tongue wonderfully, it puts your tongue, teeth and lips to use, but I wouldn't have accepted it as Britain's favourite word. I have rarely seen anybody use it within every day speech, and isn't that what favourite means, well let's find out. Here is the Oxford Dictionary's definition of the word favourite:

adjective

[ATTRIBUTIVE]

Preferred to all others of the same kind:

[example] 'their favourite Italian restaurant'.

Can you actually tell me that people use this Oxford English Dictionary's example:

'a series of small serendipities'

Before they use this

'a series of small happy chances/events'

It is a beautiful language and very complex. We use it to invigorate our lives, it is the one thing that we British can be truly proud of, and yet seem to slaughter it almost every day, with lazy speech and poor pronunciation. I wouldn't mind if people did say, 'we had a series of small serendipities', it is intelligent, oblique and yet grotesque, and why not say it? I find this a lot better to say than , 'I took a selfie last night,' (another word added to the Oxford Dictionary) but when did we get too lazy to say, 'I took a picture of myself last night', it means the same thing and it stops us from having to add words just because of their nuisance popularity.

This is all well and good as I said before, "I love words", I adore the works of Edgar Allen Poe and a lot of his words don't actually exist, but I still get the message that it conveys, but the word Serendipity?

If I was in charge I would definitely put a few words that Edgar Allen Poe uses in to the dictionary before I put in, let's say... a picture? or iPod for that matter, which they state as 'a small electronic device for playing and storing digital audio and visual files'. No! That would be an mp3/mp4 player. iPod is a brand name, and last time I checked (a few seconds ago) names aren't in the dictionary. This got me thinking and after some research, I have decided I want to be a word.

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Ross

Pronounciation: /rôs/

Etymology : From a Scottish and English surname which originally indicated a person from a place called Ross (such as the region of Ross in northern Scotland), derived from Gaelic ros meaning "promontory, headland"

Definition: Can now also be used as a word also, as discovered by Ross Henry Halford in the year 2015. Can be used in a variety of formats

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Cognate: ross, spelt, rossz in Hungarian means bad

Synonyms: gonosz, helytelen, kellemetlen.

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Noun

any person with the first/surname as Ross
anyone who enjoys to laugh
anyone who thinks highly of others

Example: 'I know it was hard for everyone else but he tried to maintain an air of ross about himself'.

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Verb

ross [ed], [ize],[ish],[it],[ited]

to make something/someone a little bit crazy
to alter, usually in an obscure and odd way
to do something perceived strange or unusual
at first to be unpredictable but becomes predictable

Examples:' It's kind of cute, but sometimes I feel a little bit rossed.'

'His/Her opinion on the article was greatly rossized.'

'He/She just stood there, it seemed very charming, but rossish.'

'I couldn't see them clearly at first, but when I did there was something rossited about them all.'

Synonyms

alluring, obscure, odd, strange, strangely charming, weird.

weird, obscure, strangely charming, alluring, odd-ish,

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Adjective

ross

a colour of indeterminate categorization, usually greenish.
of or pertaining the strange world(s) in literary fictions.
mainly consistent in the world of romanticism.

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The way to get a word into the Oxford English Dictionary is to have it cited in various sources at least 20,000 times in a year.*

I want to get my name (Ross) into the dictionary, and whilst I have thought about the ramifications this may have, (others may want to have their names in there, things will get viral, perhaps this will destroy language, perhaps it could enhance it) I want to give it a go. So I call upon everyone who reads this, especially Ross', to share this message, spread the joy (and frustration) of this article and to start using my name as a verb, noun, adjective etc, and of course all the other Ross' in this world. Let's give our name a legacy that will withstand the rest of time and life. Let's ross the s**t out of this world, and if all else fails we can always just