Tag: English

New Words!

The world’s greatest (this may be a biased opinion) dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, just added some new words and I could not be happier. The UWM English Department taught us to love and respect the OED.  When we were supposed to find the origins of words, we did not go just anywhere… we checked the OED. I thought it was sad that my subscription ended when I was no longer in school, but I found ways around that.

The OED (and any dictionary, really) is always adding new words and often no one (but weird English majors) bothers to pay attention. This time, people are paying attention. The Huffington Post had a great article  about the new words being added and even more interesting are the comments on the article.

People HATE new words and they hate their inclusion into the dictionary even more. I will always find that amusing because people use new/slang/improper words every day but they still maintain that these “fads” are ruining the English language. If it weren’t for fads, we would all be speaking Old English.

One of the best complaint comments was about how someone in the future will look back on our society and see that we included “sexting” in the dictionary and they will have a “WTF” reaction. If you don’t see how that’s ironic, I’m not sure there’s hope for you. Also recently included in the OED are internet acronyms like “LOL” and “OMG.” I love English.

Three (of the 400) new words added to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (which I use all the time because it’s amazing):

Retweet
verb: (on the social networking service Twitter) repost or forward (a message posted by another user)

Sexting
noun: the sending of sexually explicit photographs or messages via mobile phone

Cyberbullying
noun: the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.

According to The Telegraph, “the new words were selected after being entered into a database of 2 billion words drawn from contemporary websites and texts to prove their ubiquity”.

The dictionary’s editor Angus Stevenson told Channel 4 News that “new words often reflect the era in which they were added to the dictionary,” and commented on the impact that social media and the Internet have had on language.

It’s worth noting that the term “retweet” was not widely used until 2008 (two years after Twitter was founded), when users began prepending their messages with “RT @username”. Now with more than 175 million users, Twitter terminology has become common language, and the Oxford University Press undoubtedly agrees.

Other new words added to the Concise Oxford Dictionary include “woot” (used to express enthusiasm in online communication) and “kinematograph” (an early film projector).

THIS JUST IN: OED *removes* words to make room for new ones! I love it. Discuss.

Thanks, UWM.

Ahhhhhh.

That is a big sigh of relief. Not that I didn’t expect to graduate, but when your last big college semester is 18 credits of upper level English courses, you can’t help but feel discouraged most of the time. I’m quite proud to say that despite the massive amount of difficulty I faced this semester, I came out with excellent grades.

I learned a lot over the past five years (don’t hate, sometimes it takes people longer than four when they switch their major a lot!). I learned American Sign Language and about Deaf culture. I was the Executive Director for the Conservative Women’s Movement on campus and truly learned about discrimination and unfair treatment of conservatives in education. I had an interesting seminar course on anthropological linguistics. I was exposed to 19th century mystery novels. I had enough Psych courses to interest me in Ed Psych for a possible grad program. I learned about William Blake and what a talented and crazy man he was. Most importantly, I learned that you don’t have to read the book to write the paper or religiously attend class – even when attendance is a grade factor (unless you will die without an A… then you might want to continue not having a life outside of the university.)

Despite doing well, I actually disliked most of my classes this semester. The subtitle for one Lit course was “mystery, suspense and the supernatural”. I was pretty excited to read the chosen novels, until I actually picked one up from the bookstore and opened it. It was hundreds of pages of *b o r i n g*. So, I turned to my trusty Google and found online summaries and notes for all of the obscure titles that Sparknotes didn’t have. I didn’t read a single book for that class. My grade was a B+. Why? Because I’m an excellent paper writer and I strategically attended the important classes. Of course, attendance was part of the grade for the course and yet, I managed to show up just enough to hear key paper ideas from classmates and the professor and to participate enough to show that I know what I’m talking about.

That mentality followed me to other courses this semester, as well. I learned that sitting in class is not really that important and if you can find the information and retain it and say something profound about it, you will never struggle in school. It baffles me that some students attend class like it’s their job and can’t take a test or write a paper to save their life.

College is about strategy. Recently, my husband asked what the point of my degree is if I just plan on being a housewife soon. Whether I get a 9-5 job or work in my home, the strategies I learned from my education will carry throughout my life. I learned how to be creative and crafty in my research methods. (Smart consumers do research!) I learned how to say something smart about topics I don’t care about in the required amount of words. (Perfect prep for small talk with grown-ups I don’t like or know) I learned how to pay attention to important things and forget unimportant things. (Like blocking my husband out when he talks to me -ha ) I mastered the art of writing an intelligent paper with limited information or provoking thoughts. (Like the convincing letters I may have to write to get my children excused from things or to negotiate billing and other issues with insurance companies.) Those are all priceless tools.

Holla!! Im super excited to have graduated!
Holla!! I'm super excited to have graduated!

Here, Im more composed but equally excited.
Here, I'm more composed but equally excited.