1 Introduction Words do not exist in isolation, they exist in a community of words that together form a language. Within a language, words contest for existence. Petersen et al. (2012) appositely refer to words as “competing actors in a system of finite resources” (p. 6 Petersen, Tenenbaum, S., & Stanley, 2012). Some words thrive in this competitive environment and establish or maintain a firm position in a language. Other words succumb to systemic pressure and gradually cease to exist.
