Late lexicon

Borrowed books are being returned late to the library. So what else is new? The latest long-overdue book to be returned was "Youth and Two Other Stories" by Joseph Conrad.

A copy of the book was handed back to the Larchmont Public Library in Larchmont, New York, United States, in September. It was supposed to be returned on 11 October 1933, or 90 years ago.

Joanie Morgan of Virginia found the book in her stepfather's belongings in July and mailed it two months later.

Caroline Cunningham, a Larchmont librarian, said she believed it was the most overdue book in the library's history, which opened in 1926, the New York Post reported.

The maximum fine charged by the library for a late return was $5, but it won't charge Morgan that amount, according to NYP.

Meanwhile, another long-overdue book that had been returned was the 39th volume of the Swedish Academy Dictionary.

The Swedish equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, the 33,111-page SAD's final volume was sent to the printer last week, its editor said on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse.

"It was started in 1883, and now we're done. Over the years, 137 full-time employees have worked on it," Christian Mattsson told AFP.

Ironically, volumes A to R of the SAD are now so old they need to be revised to include modern words. The A volume published in 1893 lacks the word "allergy," which came into the Swedish language around the 1920s.

"Barbie doll," "app," and "computer" are among the 10,000 words that will be added to the dictionary in a work that will reportedly take another seven years.

WJG WITH AFP @tribunephl_wjg