A six-year-old boy is trying to get a clever new word into the dictionary

Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary have responded to this six-year-old's idea for a new word.

Levi Budd, from Victoria, Canada has got a clever new word for the world's greatest English language dictionaries.

Along the way he's won the backing of William Shatner.

According to The Star, Budd (clearly a child genius) was in the car one day when he noticed that the word 'STOP' on a stop sign, reads as 'POTS' in reverse.

His parents, Jessy Freidenber and Lucky Budd, say that Levi then asked them;

What do we call a word that spells another word backwards?

Shockingly, there is no such term for this.

A palindrome is a word which spells the same word in reverse, such as: 'Hannah', 'racecar', 'sagas', and 'tenet'.

Working from the 'drome' ending, Levi came up with 'Levidrome' for words which spell another word in reverse.

Palindrome was coined by the playwright Ben Jonson, so Levi is in esteemed company.

Levi's father Lucky, an author of nine books, suggested the word to Webster's dictionary (and they recreated these events in this campaign video, below).

According to Lucky, the Merriam Webster dictionary told him that all they need to do is make sure the word is popular.

To that end, the actor William Shatner tweeted his support for Levidrome.

On Thursday the Oxford Dictionary responded, and said it was 'well on its way' to being in their dictionary,

Schools and libraries in Ottawa, Toronto, and Calgary have also got in touch with Lucky to show off their 'Levidrome' suggestions.

Lucky told The Star that the campaign has spread around the local community, as well as across the web.

Most days when we go to school Levi walks by a crosswalk and the principal of the school stands there with a stop sign welcoming the kids.

She always says to him, ‘You got any good levidromes for me today?’

The other day he said, ‘Yeah, I got stressed and desserts. And drawer and reward.'

He added that Levi's self esteem had been boosted by other children joining in the game of thinking up new Levidromes.

HT The Star

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