• ‘Betrump’ has been chosen by a public vote as the word the British public would most like to see returned to modern-day English
• Betrump means to deceive, cheat, to elude, or slip from
• It received 35 per cent more votes than the word in second place, ear-rent
   

Last month, language experts at the University of York and Privilege Insurance worked together to create a list of ‘lost words’ from the English language, and asked the nation to vote for their favourite.

Out of the 656 votes that were cast, ‘betrump’ emerged as the clear winner with 42 per cent of the overall vote.

Dr. Dominic Watt from the University of York, who compiled the research, has now written to Dr. John Simpson, Chief Editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, to advise him of the result and petition for its re-inclusion. The word can be traced back to the OED in the 16thcentury and Dr. Watt’s research team were unable to find any further textual citations of the word until almost 500 years later in an Indy100 article*.

Betrump, which means to deceive, cheat, elude, or slip from, was discovered by Dr Dominic Watt and his research team at the Department of Language and Linguistic Science, after they spent three months scouring historic texts and etymological dictionaries to create the curated list of ‘Lost Words’ they felt were still relevant to modern day life.
 

The top five ‘Lost words’:

Source: Privilege Insurance Lost Words

 

Dominic Watt, Senior Lecturer in Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, said:

“The word ‘betrump’ had almost completely fallen out of use for nearly 500 years, until it’s very recent re-emergence as the nation’s favourite ‘lost word’. The ‘Lost Words’ campaign has allowed us bring back an interesting but (until this year!) exceptionally obscure word.

“The premise of our research was to find lost words that were still relevant to modern life and it appears that ‘betrump’ has captured the imagination of the nation and allowed people re-engage with language of old.”
 

Christian Mendes, head of Privilege home insurance, said:

“We are constantly presented with new additions to the English language, but we rarely discuss the words that are leaving and becoming obsolete. That’s why the ‘Lost Words’ campaign became so important –  it allows us to understand the constantly evolving nature of the English language, with as many words entering as leaving.

“The nation’s choice of word is interesting, relevant, and fitting with the world we currently find ourselves living in.”
 

ENDS

Note to Editors

* https://indy100.com/article/definition-of-betrump-scots-language-donand-trump-7612686

For more information, please contact: Fran Langdon or Laura Nugent at Richmond & Towers Communications:

[email protected] / laura@rtc.london / 020 3179 0720

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