Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

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Dr. Goodword
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Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Mar 01, 2016 5:28 pm

Here is a new word, tsundoku, that has crept into Wikipedia (only), but no dictionaries. It occurs over 100,000 times over the World Wide Web, including Spanish, Croatian, Thai and many other websites throughout the world.
"Tsundoku" (n.) is the constant act of buying books, but never reading them. Specifically, it is letting books pile up in one's room so much that the owner never gets a chance to read all of them. This is done by the owners of the books, not by the booksellers. The origin of "Tsundoku" is a Japanese slang (積ん読) "tsun-doku". 「積ん読」 came from 「積んでおく」 "tsunde-oku" (to pile things up ready for later and leave) and 「読書」 "dokusho" (reading books). 「積んどく」 "tsundoku" is a euphonic change of 「積んでおく」.
English borrows precious few Japanese words, especially words easily confused with tsunami. However, here is a word that we need but occurs in no dictionary--just the definition of a sniglet. So, I thought I would toss it out for a 'sniglet' contest.

Since I am currently divesting myself of most of my library, I can offer as a prize some of my best books. For sure the "Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms" and the "New York Times Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused & Mispronounced Words". Substitutions will be possible.
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Perry Lassiter
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Re: Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

Postby Perry Lassiter » Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:56 pm

Guilty as charged. That's for storing. Is there a word for those of us who insist on starting a dozen books and sort of gradually reading all of them over time, with interruptions to devour a novel or two?
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Re: Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

Postby Philip Hudson » Sun Apr 10, 2016 2:48 am

If you die alone in a house, except for a few cats, they will eat you. If you collect a fine library and thousands of valuable computer files and die, your wife or kids will consider them the detritus of a wasted life. They will send the books to the dump and erase your many terabytes of data.
It is dark at night, but the Sun will come up and then we can see.

Perry Lassiter
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Re: Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Apr 10, 2016 2:40 pm

Prob why doc and some of my friends dispose of their libraries while yet alive. I shall leave instructions for the dispersal, but no way am I going to part with them. I might need tomorrow the one I gave away today.
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Re: Tsundoku--A New Word in Search of a Sniglet

Postby Dr. Goodword » Wed May 18, 2016 11:44 pm

The bulk of my library comprises grammars, article collections, and dictionaries of more than 100 languages. Since I retired I'm not conducting research in any of these languages, so I will never need them.
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