The Wolvercote Anglo Saxon Society

The Wolvercote Anglo-Saxon Society is a long-rumored secret literary society at Oxford University suspected of adding many imagined words to the Oxford English Dictionary since the 1870s.

According to legend, and as often described by Oxford historians, the society grew out of a rogue group within the "Unregistered Words Committee" that initially led to the development of the dictionary. Several members of the committee believed that Richard Chenevix Trench's study, On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries did not adequately account for words that were helpful but missing from the English Language.

The society, which is said to have met on the summer solstice in the town of Wolvercote near Oxford is attributed by some bolder linguists with the invention of the words cuddle, banter, bludgeon, dweeb, gimmick, hunch, and condom. The choice of the name Anglo-Saxon Society for a society that created words without Germanic origin reflects the ironic etymological deception that the group celebrated.

Although many scholars in the fields of English, Lexicology and History have all theorized on the society's possible existence, the OED has refused to dignify the speculation with any comment at all, which has only fed further wonderings.

Sources

• Lost for Words: the Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary, by Lynda Mugglestone, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2005., ISBN 9780300106992
• History in English Words, by Owen Barfield and W. H. Auden, New York, Steiner Books, 2002., ISBN 9780940262119
• English Lexicology: In Theory and Practice, by Pavol Kvetko, Trnava, Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda, 2005., ISBN 9788089220168
• Grammar Gremlins: Taming the Mischief-makers of the English Language, by Don K Ferguson, Chicago, MJF Books, 1995., ISBN 9781567317503