Tag: linguistics

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.

Buon Compleanno A Me!

My 23rd birthday is finally when I feel like an adult. I’ve been a working, bill-paying, independent-living “adult” for a few years now. Even when I got married, I didn’t feel much like a grown-up. I was still in school and my dad was paying for part of my car.

Well now, at 23, I feel like a grown-up…. I’m done with classes. All the bills are on me. I found *several* gray hairs yesterday (no lie!!). I’m spending my birthday cleaning (to impress the family with my house-wifing skills when they visit this weekend).

I think this transition into adulthood makes me feel especially Golden. According to the UW-Madison Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, the term “Golden Birthday” originated in Wisconsin. They define it as, “the day on which your age in years matches the day of the month on which you were born, ie turning 21 on the 21st day of one’s birth month.”

As highly regarded as this university may be, I think they lacked in their research quite a bit. My entire Italy-born family knew what a Golden Birthday was before they immigrated to Milwaukee. Despite being a big fan of Milwaukee (and Italy) I don’t think either can take credit for the term. Sorry, UW-Madison CSUMC- you failed.

For birthday celebrations, today I’m buying pre-sale tickets to my favorite musical group of all time: Hanson! And then tomorrow, my husband is taking me to my favorite restaurant: The Melting Pot. More gushing about the both of those in another post.

As a side note, I do have to say the Wisconsin Englishes project is quite fascinating for anyone interested in regional dialects.