William Shatner adds voice to Victoria boy’s campaign to add a new word to the dictionary

A six-year-old Victoria boy armed with a fascination for the English language has made a bid to get a new word into the dictionary.

Levi Budd is a second grader at Saint Michael’s University School who has coined the word “levidrome”.

The linguistic creation describes a word that when spelled backward makes a different word: for example “Stop” becomes “pots”, which would be considered a levidrome.

On October 9th, he created a video to spread the word.

It just might be working.

Enter William Shatner

William Shatner, a Canadian actor best known for his work as Captain Kirk from the original Star Trek, pitched in, asking Oxford to put the word in the dictionary.

The word will require widespread use to find itself in an official dictionary, but it has already been added to Merriam-Webster’s online “open dictionary” database, as well as to urbandictionary.com, a website documenting slang words and phrases.

Levidrome faces “semordnilap” as competition for the definition, which is “palindromes” spelled backward. Palindromes are words that read the same backward and forwards.

But it’s safe to say that “levidrome” is easier on the eyes and the ears than “semordnilap”.

Oxford Dictionary responds!

The levidrome social media campaign reached a pivotal point on Thursday, as Oxford announced that they’ve added it to their list of words they keep an eye on!

They posted this video to let Levi know where his word stands.

Get talking with your friends and family, and see who can find the longest levidrome!