Squeezed awkwardly between the dainty lace of a ‘bralette’ and the dirt and grime which is conjured by the colloquial north-easterly term ‘brook’, this month ‘Brexit’ made its belated entrance into the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary is updated four times a year, and its editors could only wait so long in the vain hope that the word would acquire some sort of meaning.
Instead ‘Brexit’ appears, as a noun, at the top of a page full mostly of nothing. While the etymology of the phrase is clear enough, the space which would normally contain at least one definition has been left hopelessly blank.
Accepting neither hot air nor tautologies, the editors have been forced to issue, for the first time, a page more resembling a scrapbook or colouring book, with the caveat that anyone who fills in the page by hand will have invalidated their warranty.
The empty space left in the wake of ‘Brexit’ – described as ‘utterly vacuous’ by one professor, but as ‘entirely apt’ by an OED spokesperson – has inevitably provoked a storm of controversy. Leave campaigners were quickest off the mark, describing the void as a typical act of ‘elitist liberal betrayal’.
Instead politicians have suggested that the page could enumerate the various red lines, strategies, hopes, and loosely held objectives which might someday prove the focus of Brexit negotiations, which Prime Minister Theresa May continues to insist will begin by the end of the coming March.
Alternatively, future editions of the dictionary might list attributes of the European Union which can be triumphantly crossed out as Britain nears its exit, such as ‘Access to the Single Market’, ‘Freedom of Movement’, Workers Rights’, ‘Croissants’, and ‘Prosperity’.
For the young struggling to comprehend a world defined by irrational fears and closing borders, the pictorial edition of the dictionary is set to feature either the gurning face of Nigel Farage, or a composite image encapsulating the homogenous will of the British people.
