This may seem like a vocabulary topic; however, as it has to do with the propagation and/or acceptance of neologisms, actually the evolution of language I thought I'd post it here.

The first time I used, wordable, I'm pretty sure was on this forum and at the time I was surprised to find out it was actually a word. Most spell checkers reject it, and even TFD says it is not a word; however, it is in the Oxford Living Dictionary.


So my first question is, does that make it officially a word?

Well, I suppose my zeroth question is what is the Oxford Living Dictionary? Why is there a distinction from the OED, other than it is free and the OED requires a $90.00 subscription? (usually $295.00 but they are celebrating their 90th anniversary).

My second question is, consider the following phrases:
"...it was an amazing experience beyond description."
"...it was an amazing experience beyond wordable."
Do those two phrases convey the same thing? To me, they seem slightly different.

Oho! the plot thickens, while wordable is considered a word by the Oxford living dictionary, wordable is not.

On the other hand, unwordable is in Merriam-Webster's while wordable is not.

Finally the Oxford Living Dictionary cites the first usage of wordable occurring in the late 19th century. So it seems to me that if the word, which in the actual definition of the term is a meme, was truly an adaptive mutation of language then it would be more widespread.

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Sorry, damn auto-correction. Please read: "u-n-w-o-r-d-a-b-l-e".

Interesting question you have posited, Epiphileon.

I have never before heard about the word in question. However, it does not mean that it does not exist. Simply I had had no occasion to use it, or to create it in anticipation that a person I were speaking with would be ready to accept its usage. Its use may depend on the context and mutual understanding of intention amid group of people using it.
I may use as an example a word "doable". Let's imagine an advert where attractive woman in long white dress leaves her car going to meet a man. She may think that she looks so great that the man she would like to impress by her intellect in conjunction with her appearance would guarantee her "success". And in this context the word "doable" gains additional, quite funny meaning. Because she is doable. Because the man she wants to affect favorably could be of the same opinion.
But the word "doable" is in use for more than a hundred years, as indicated by a legal case Gordon v Gordon from 1895 year.

Regrettably I cannot find any reported use of the word "wordable". This may indicate that in the common law area this word was not used in a context of a debatable relationship between people leading to the courtroom. But there may be other instances where this word could be used, like on pages of a certain newspaper having a name in common with the capital of the U.S. state of North Dakota.

I think that a good, humorous advertisement which could use the word "wordable" would propagate it quickly.

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Meine treue deine hande. Herzogtum.

"It was not a wordable experience - it was sublime."
"The theory exists only in his head - it isn't even wordable."
"Writers start to get ideas for stories or concepts before they are even wordable."

Yeah. I reckon one could make a case for it.

As to what the " Oxford Living Dictionary" is? I'd not heard of it before, either. So I went looking and - probably like you - found it a rather suss search. Unlike other OED dictionaries, there seemed a suspicious lack of reference to it.

This "Review" of it isn't written by a British-speaker.The English emanating from the OED is. It doesn't enlighten one very much, does it? Seems very unclear - even obfuscatory?

Reviews for Oxford English Dictionary – Add-ons for Firefox (en-US) https://bit.ly/2AzePCG

Could it just be a name for a portal into the Oxford Learners Dictionary? As opposed to (as I understood it) the name of a new/different/seperate bona fide publication released by the OED?

Or have I totally misconstued?

I understand that in English, any expression can become a word and will be recognised as such if found on a book or a periodical. More so, if it’s used in written by a famous writer or journalist. The consecration comes once it appears included in the Oxford Dictionary. E.g. "smackable", used by James Joyce in Ulysses, and recorded on the OED.
In other languages, like Spanish, a word becomes such only after officially accepted by the Academy of the Language.

It's not quite as simple as you make it out to be.

To be added to a standard dictionary, like the OED, or like Webster's (an AE dictionary), a word must be in general usage. It is not sufficient to have only one published use. The citation the OED provides is for the earliest located use of the word. By the time it gets into the dictionary, it will have been used many, many, many more times.

Online dictionaries are different. Some, like Dictionary.com aggregate definitions (antonyms and synonyms, too) from other dictionaries. Some, like The Urban Dictionary try to gather the most up-to-the-minute casual, slang, or shocking/scandalous/obscene usages.

If you are interested in how words come into an English dictionary, the OED has been written about extensively. Three good books you could try are:
The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Peter Gilliver (He worked at the OED as a lexicographer.)
The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester and by the same author
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary This one was originally titled The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words