New Oxford Dictionary

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I'm often surprised at some lexicographers' and language historians' willingness to declare some usage or word "obsolete."

I'm sure they define some threshold. Perhaps a certain distribution of occurances.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I can recall from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language a declaration that "merry" was pretty much gone except in a set phrase like "Merry Christmas." What the hell? I use some archaisms, but "merry" isn't remotely archaic, nor at all obsolete to anyone who read Tolkien, who wasn't necessarily archaic in his usages either.

'Merry' is definitely archaic. I never hear anyone use this unless they intend to sound archaic. The fact that Tolkien's use of 'merry' happened relatively recently doesn't make it any less so.

When I read Tolkien, I definitley got the impression he was writing to make his stories sound like they came from a past era. I've never read any of his scholarly work though. . .