A Victoria-born word is among the latest additions to A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles.
Created in 1967, it was revived and reissued in 2017 as an academic project at UBC. The latest iteration includes the term “levidrome”, rooted in the curiosity of a kid in the back seat.
“It’s incredible because where this all came from was a really good idea coupled with a lesson on taking initiative,” says that kid’s dad, Lucky Budd, a main instigator in the process. “It’s a word we’ve seen used all over the planet.”
In late 2017, young Levi looked to fix what he saw as a hole in the English language with a new word.
A voracious reader, Levi, then six, looked to add levidrome – a word to describe words that, when spelt backwards, form a different word – to the dictionary.
It all started when the Grade 2 St. Michaels University School student discovered palindromes: mom, dad, racecar. Then curiosity caught him. What about reward and drawer, or stop and pots? How does one describe those?
The family embarked on creating the new word.
They made a video and started an online campaign to see if the world would embrace the idea.
Initially, they sent it off to Webster's, who told them “that’s not how it works” – a term must be used by a large enough portion of the population to make it in.
After reading an Oak Bay News story about Levi’s campaign to get official word recognition, it landed a spot in the Urban Dictionary thanks to the user Hanashiaite.
“Many recently added words have been on Urban Dictionary for ages,” Hanashiaite told the Oak Bay News at the time. “Froyo just got added to Meriam Webster in September, but has been on UD since 2005. The process of submission is literally just a form, so it’s not terribly complicated.”
Then Canadian actor William Shatner, who rose to fame as Captain Kirk on Star Trek, waded into the levidrome waters with a Nov. 8, 2017, post on what was then called Twitter (now X). The verified Twitter account @WilliamShatner wrote, “Dearest @OxfordWords I just sent you an email about #Levidromes - a word that when spelled backwards, turns into a different yet valid English word for addition to your dictionary. Please see: https://youtu.be/jpZ3bh1R6Kk for more info on this new exciting word! Bill.”
Oxford became aware of the campaign and responded with a video of its own.
“Levi, there are many new words every year. Some very clever ones and some very useful ones. We don’t add all of these words to our dictionary; we’d never sleep if we did. Instead, we only add the words that get used by a lot of people for a long time,” Oxford editor Rebecca Juganaru says in the video.
Levidrome faced controversy right from the start. The term semordinlap (palindromes backward) had been used in certain circles and was coined far before levidrome. The Dictionary of Canadianisms also cites earlier terms heteropalindrome, reverse grams and mynoretehs that meant the same thing.
But they’ve seen limited mainstream appeal.
Levidrome, however, was catchy and catching on.
So the campaign continued. By spring 2018, the word slid into everyday lexicon and was accepted by the Webster’s Open Source Dictionary of user-submitted words.
That support sailed through the year as Shatner continued tweeting levidromes himself while encouraging others to do the same, from simple stop and pots to full phrases.
By that time, local schools were using the term for fun learning projects, and even local businesses were jumping on board.
Lucky had local schools such as Strawberry Vale, and those across the nation, emailing levidrome boards on a regular basis. Popular Victoria beer maker Phillips boosted the brand with its Imperial Regal Lager.
“This is one of those ones where the name drove the direction of the beer,” Matt Phillips said at the time. “We’ve got really creative brewers, and it’s important for them to have an opportunity to showcase their talents.”
Grammar bloggers and local businesses got into “levidrome boards”, and a social media levidrome sign game popped up around the world. People posted a photo of a sign with a levidrome in it and then challenged others to the same.
But a campaign does not generally get a word in the dictionary, explained Dollinger. It requires frequency. Levidrome was on the radar when the 2017 edition of Canadianisms came out, but didn’t quite meet the frequency required.
More recently, Budd found the word in more general use across the Commonwealth, citing Australian books using it in context.
“I saw that levidrome frequency was not far off from the frequency of those included in the Oxford English Dictionary; it seemed words they had for that weren’t catching on,” editor of A Dictionary of Canadianisms, Stefan Dollinger, said.
A proponent of “more of a playful approach”, he felt it was clearly a documented Canadianism spreading internationally.
“It’s well documented, there’s no question about it really,” Dollinger said of including levidrome. “It’s a question of who’s going to be first; it looks like we are.”
It’s among 181 new Canadianisms added this spring, for a total of more than 14,500, including local favourites such as down island, demoviction, elbows up and lahal.
The word levidrome has travelled far beyond that backseat, the Budd family and even Victoria.
“I didn’t think it would ever happen, but it’s been all about the journey. It’s incredibly satisfying to see how one idea with good initiative and lots of people getting on board can find its way into the fabric,” Budd said.
“It’s not even associated with Levi anymore; it really has not attached to him. It’s just become its own thing. Even though that’s the genesis of the idea, it very quickly took on a life of its own.”
