Levi Budd, a six-year-old from British Colombia, Canada, has requested that a word he created be added to the dictionary—and he's receiving widespread support, including from some big-name celebrities.
According to reports, Budd was in the car when he realised that 'STOP' on a stop sign spelled 'POTS' backwards. The inquisitive child asked his mum, "What do we call a word that spells another word backwards?" His mum and dad soon realised there actually wasn't a term that defines these words—so Levi dubbed them 'levidromes'.
Levi's dad, Lucky, is a historian and an author of nine books, and told The Star that his son began reading at age three, and knew what the word 'palindrome' meant by age four.
Lucky proposed that his son's created word 'levidrome' (pronounced lehv-ih-drome) be added to Merriam-Webster dictionaries, who agreed to add it to their open-source dictionary, but denied the addition to official dictionaries as it's not in common use yet.
The father and son team have created a social media push to spread 'levidrome' worldwide, and embed the word into common vernacular.
Lucky and Levi released this Youtube video in order to (literally) spread the word:
Since then, Levi's new word has gained an enormous amount of supporters - including actor William Shatner.
Lucky told The Star that he wanted to teach his son initiative, and to take action on his ideas: “If you have a good idea, go for it. You never know what’s going to happen. Whether it makes it into the dictionary or not, at this point the journey of just doing it and how many people have found inspiration is just amazing.”
The father says schools and libraries in Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary are all getting in touch to share boards where school children have created levidromes.
Levi's school is also getting involved in the campaign. “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'," Lucky said.
