"non-word" word rant - it oughtta be a word

[Tom44]

So there I am working on yesterday's challenge puzzle and I come up with spoon which leads me to spooned and then spooner and Bang! - no longer at 100%.  Now the reality is that I would not have stayed at 100%, so that's not what this rant is about.  It may not be what other people were thinking, but in my mind when I was sticking in those three words I was thinking of two people in bed lying on their sides facing the same way - a position called spooning.  And what else would you call someone who is spooning with his/her partner but a spooner?  This is one of those non-words that ought to be a word.  Of course, there are a host of proper nouns such as Spooner, Wisconsin, or the man who gave us spoonerisms, but spooner logically should be a legitimate word even though it doesn't come up that way in the dictionary.

I accept this.  There really isn't a legitimate solution except to take the more obvious exceptions and manually add them in.  Its just distressing to know in your heart the word ought to work but then it doesn't.  [Sigh!]

Rant mode off.

[pat]

Maybe the word should exist though, Tom. I tried it myself and was quite surprised that it was rejected. Spoon is a verb, so spooned is allowed, therefore why not spooner, being one who spoons? I would imagine that if one is concerned about percentages and hence reluctant to try words on the off-chance, the creation of nouns by adding 'er' to a verb must create all sorts of problems. Sometimes words that you think are obvious are disallowed yet at other times when you view the solution you see words that you wouldn't have expected to exist. Isn't the English language wonderful?

[biggerbirdbrain]

I agree, and also because there's another meaning for it. Used to be, spooning was also a word for kissing or courting.

[birdy]

That was the meaning I was thinking of, I must admit.

[technomc]

I think about that word a lot too    :'(

[pat]

Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, thinking about it is as far as I get these days...

[Toni]

  Me too!

[technomc]

What a frustrated bunch we are.... :'(

[Linda]

Speak for yourselves!! 

[pat]

We are, oh smug one, we are!

[Alan W]

...spooner logically should be a legitimate word even though it doesn't come up that way in the dictionary.

Well, as a matter of fact, Tom, spooner is in the Shorter Oxford, meaning "a person who spoons with another, a sentimental lover". (This sense of spoon, meaning "Cuddle, fondle or talk amorously, esp. in a sentimental or silly fashion", is apparently derived from a colloquial usage of spoon to mean a "shallow or foolish person; a simpleton", based on the notion of shallowness.)

At least one major author has used spooner. D.H. Lawrence, in the posthumously published Mr Noon, used the word a couple of times. For example: "Emmie, in her wet mackintosh, cuddled into his arms. He was famous as a spooner, and she was famous as a sport."

So, I think spooner manages to qualify, and should be admitted to the game as a rare word.

[TRex]

At least one major author has used spooner. D.H. Lawrence, in the posthumously published Mr Noon, used the word a couple of times. For example: "Emmie, in her wet mackintosh, cuddled into his arms. He was famous as a spooner, and she was famous as a sport."

How do you find these (obscure to me) citations, Alan?

[Alan W]

Trex, the sites I use most include: the English language corpora placed online by Mark Davies at Brigham Young University; Project Gutenberg and Google Book Search.

Searching can present a challenge when the word you're interested in, like spooner, is also a proper name. Searching for "spooners", or "a spooner", etc, can be a way around that problem.

In this case, I found the reference in a corpus based on the citations in the Oxford English Dictionary.

[anonsi]

Wouldn't you know, it turns out lickety is not a word. And I typed it in, lickety-split, too!

[birdy]

That'll teach you to try to put in half of a hypenated word, Anonsi!