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From: name withheld
To: Merriam-Webster
Subject: Fef

I enjoy your dictionary very much. Your website is very interesting too. Your page inspires me to expand my vocabulary and I do so through your ‘word of the day’ feature. However, my true concern is relating to the addition of a word to your dictionary. This word is ‘fef.’ My friend Alex and I discovered this word about a year ago. It is now in common usage by many people we know. Occasionally, though, people unfamiliar with the definition of the word would ask what it meant. So Alex created a page which explains how the word ‘fef’ should be used. This page is located at www.fefnet.com/fef.php. I hope you will take this word into consideration for addition into your high-quality dictionaries.

Sincerely,
name withheld

Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 08:32:34 -0500
From: name withheld
To: name withheld
Subject: Re: Fef

Dear Mr.,

Thank you for your letter regarding “fef.” Although I enjoyed learning about your word on the website, I must tell you that we cannot accept “fef” for entry in an upcoming edition of one of our dictionaries at this time.

The way words get into the dictionary is this:

For a word to be entered, we need to have evidence that the word is being used by a large number of English-speakers for a substantial period of time. Everyday, our editors comb through newspapers, magazines, and books in search of new words and new senses of existing words. Once found, these words are underlined and as much surrounding context as is needed to effectively communicate the meaning of the word is put in brackets. We call this “reading and marking.” The bracketed and underlined passage is then typed on a 3 x 5 slip of paper. We call this a citation. When it comes time to edit a new edition of a dictionary, these citations are then given to editors for consideration. If a word has a substantial number of citations (no fewer than, say, eight) that span over a period of several years, then the word has a good chance of being entered in an upcoming edition of one of our dictionaries.

If you can encourage enough people to use the word “fef,” then maybe someday you will see it in a Merriam-Webster dictionary. Until then, good luck and thanks for writing!

Sincerely,

name withheld
Merriam-Webster Editorial Department

P.S. Thank you for your kind words about our website! We aim to please!