I came up with an amazing word years ago, and I have been trying like hell to get it into the dictionary: procrasturbation. It means “to waste time by pleasuring yourself.” I wrote Merriam-Webster back in 2004—here is the response I got: “Your coinage is clever, but I’m afraid that cleverness is not the criterion on which a word is entered into our dictionaries… For ‘procrasturbate’ to be entered, it will need to appear in a number of well-read print sources for a good number of years. When we’ve collected enough citations for the word, we will enter it into our dictionary.”
I was just wondering if you could help me out with this one, Dan, by using “procrasturbate” in your column.
Organically Enters Dictionary
“Procrasturbate” is genius, OED, but appearing in my column isn’t going to get it into the dictionary. “Santorum” has appeared in this space and other well-read print sources for years now, and it hasn’t seeped into Merriam-Webster’s yet. I call shenanigans.
