Like other City Paper staffers, I’m bugged by the NYT‘s new clicking dictionary feature. It does come in handy, though, when the article is about the National Vocabulary Championship.
This is a group that knows what is pulchritudinous and what is pulverulent. This is a group that knows who is nidicoulous and who is nidifugous.
Now granted the article is about a vocab test, not a spelling bee, but clicking “nidicoulous” doesn’t give back any results. That’s because according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the NYT‘s reference, it should be spelled “nidicolous.” If you’re going to plague readers with pop-ups, please get things right.