The Definitive Authority of the M.E.D.

As the sole and senior editor of the Mooseford English Dictionary, I feel a sense of responsibility and love towards the ever-evolving linguistic map of the alces alces herd. The guiding philosophy here at the MED has always been inclusive and descriptivist. I feel that languages should have open borders, especially English, which has always been a big pot of gumbo served round the clock at Ellis Island. Give us your weird, your wacky, your huddled words yearning to breath free. If a word is useful, let it in. If not useful, at least entertaining or amusing.

In that spirit, here are two of the latest additions to reach the home office:

1. "EYE-GRAB"

I coined this at work to describe the attribute of being eye-grabbing or eye-catching. I would have gone with "eye-catch", but that sounds like a disease. "I'm afraid you have acute macular degeneration, known in layman's terms as eye-catch". Rather, when something's got eye-grab, you can't help but look at it - you don't know why, but you can't look away. Cut to the design room, after several hours of grindingly slow progress: "What do you think about this, Moose?" "Dammit, that's got eye-grab! I say we GO with it!" Note: The use of the word 'eye-grab' works best if you're smoking, drinking whiskey, and dressed in formal clothes from the late 50s - early 60s.

2. "DUNCH"

This word was invented by my lovely wife, who wanted a word to describe a meal between lunch and dinner. The word needed to be as useful for invitational purposes as its mid-morning mirror 'brunch'. As in, "Let's meet for dunch tomorrow afternoon." We road-tested "linner", but that sounded too thin, too unsatisfying. Dunch is filling but not heavy, and easy but not quick. Dunch menus are typically lunch based but with a few dinner options thrown in. You can have the big salad or the chicken sandwich, but you might want to go for the pasta. Hey, it's dunch, it's cool - have whatever.