Some institutions should srsly not work to be relevant by modern standards.
Top on that list is the Oxford Dictionary.
In a quarterly update of its online
”current English,” this standard bearer of language added a few whoppers.
A few of the additions: “FOMO,” “srsly,” “selfie,” “fauxhawk,” “FIL,” “phablet,” “grats,” “BYOD,” “bitcoin” and “twerk,” now made famous by Miley Cyrus.
English doesn’t need this.
I prefer my Oxford entries to be proper.
That publication is supposed to be the arbiter of good - and correct - taste.
To know what the kids are saying nowadays, there is the
online Urban Dictionary.The English language is a flexible muscle, with changes in meanings and nuances through the decades.
But, it should take decades of use before mainstreaming.
I doubt FOMO will take hold in casual conversation for “fear of missing out.”
It doesn’t save time to shorten words, like saying “grats” instead of “congratulations” or "apols" in place of "apologies."
An official with the online dictionary said the new words and phrases are added when enough evidence has been gathered “to be confident that they have widespread currently in English.”
So, how many sources verified “bitcoin” to mean “digital currency in which transactions can be performed without the need for a central bank?”
“Publishing online allows us to make the results of our research available more quickly than ever before,” said Angus Stevenson of the online dictionary.
“Each month, we add about 150 million words to our corpus database of English usage examples collected from sources around the world. We use this database to track and verify new and emerging words and senses on a daily basis.
"On average, we add approximately 1,000 new entries to Oxford Dictionaries Online every year, and this quarter’s update highlights some fascinating developments in the English language. Portmanteau words, or blends of words, such as phablet and jorts, remain popular, as do abbreviations, seen in new entries such as srsly and apols.”
It’s unclear how many words and phrases are eliminated.
If this had been available when I was a teenager, these would have surely been included:
“Gag me with a spoon,” “barf me out,” “grody,” “dweeb,” “no doy,” “totally tubular,” “get bent,” “to the max,” “totally rad,” “yo” and “have a cow.”
Not many of those made it past 1990.
Some did stay with us: “hacker,” “airhead” and “hip.”
Then again, my generation may be to blame for truncating words in popularizing “fave” and “legit.”
The modern English entries may be interesting in a time capsule kind of way, but longevity has yet to be determined.
Here are a few of Oxford’s latest entries:
• BYOD, n.: abbreviation of ‘bring your own device’: the practice of allowing the employees of an organization to use their own computers, smartphones, or other devices for work purposes.
• fauxhawk, n: a hairstyle in which a section of hair running from the front to the back of the head stands erect, intended to resemble a Mohican haircut (in which the sides of the head are shaved).
• FIL, n.: a person’s father-in-law (see also MIL, BIL, SIL).
• jorts, pl. n.: denim shorts.
• selfie, n. (informal): a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
• srsly, adv. (informal): short for "seriously."
• squee, exclam. & v. & n. (informal): (used to express) great delight or excitement.
• phablet, n.: a smartphone having a screen which is intermediate in size between that of a typical smartphone and a tablet computer.
• twerk, v.: dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance. •unlike, v.: withdraw one’s liking or approval of (a web page or posting on a social media website that one has previously liked)
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