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The BBC reports that the Oxford English Dictionary has added 500 new words for June 2015, including "twerk," a word that has seen use as far back as 1820, when Charles Clairmont wrote that "Germans do allow themselves such twists & twirks of the pen, that it would puzzle any one." The "twerk" spelling was used in 1901.
Other "new" words and phrases include choss, cisgender, depanneur, e-cig, ecotown, fap fap fap, FLOTUS, fo' shizzle, freegan, gimmick ("to mean 'a night out with friends'"), guerrilla ("describing activities carried out in an irregular and spontaneous way"), intersectionality, inukshuk, keener, mangia-cake, meh, SCOTUS, shipping ("the activity of discussing, portraying, or advocating a romantic pairing of two characters who appear in a work of (serial) fiction, esp. when such a pairing is not depicted in the original work"), Special Olympics, stagette, tenderpreneur, twitterati, uncanny valley, voluntourism, webisode, and yarn bombing.
The full list for June 2015 can be found here. Previous OED updates are here. Revisions are made every March, June, September, and December.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by CortoMaltese on Friday June 26 2015, @01:51AM
Who cares about the fucking language? Its all about staying hip baby!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @01:57AM
Get off my greenspace, shitlord!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 26 2015, @02:03AM
God i love it when you talk dirty... more ....MORE
fap fap fap,
chOSS!!
FO' SHIZZLE!!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 26 2015, @02:05AM
I agree with you, and legitimizing trash language will not eliminate the advantage posed to those of us who choose not to excrete such tripe unironically.
For example, speaking with the "other new words" as listed in the summary might fly in a startup headed by a lucky 21 year old but never in a proper corporate environment. And even outside of employment people speaking those words in public unironically are marked as idiots and/or hipsters (same thing) by the rest of us, even those in the demographic. Congratulations, you've discovered 4chan. But have you discovered that saying in real life what you say there makes you look like a fucking moron?
Which reminds me, Bix Noooooooood!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 26 2015, @02:09AM
"Twerk" is legitimate language. It's over 100 years old.
And it's also a classy dance in 2015.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @02:37AM
I have a hunch fucking is older than that.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM
Huh! Not to mention it also designates one of the oldest and most ubiquitous dances in on this Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM
So of all the ways "twerk" has been used over the years before it became a strip-club move, why hasn't it been entered into the vernacular until now?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 26 2015, @02:42AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 26 2015, @03:04AM
The point I was trying to make is that languages change and new words are frequently used, but also that every goddamn word-or-acronym-of-the-day shouldn't be considered (and then actually)granted official entrance into the English language overnight. It makes a mockery of it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 26 2015, @04:57AM
Mmmhhh... mixed feelings on that... on one side OGHIHA*, on the other side hipster captures better a certain attitude than vain/vanitous (or "dandy" in its early meaning) - I'd like it to stay in vocabulary for longer.
--
* Oh God, How I Hate Acronyms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by boristhespider on Friday June 26 2015, @06:48AM
To be fair to the OED, it isn't overnight. A word can't be added until it's been demonstrated - with documentary evidence - to have been in use for a certain period, which I think is five years, with a certain number of attributions which I don't remember. I don't think there's much doubt that they're allowing more relatively transient words through in order to try and bolster sales of the updated dictionary, but at the same time the OED is staffed by professionals who go to genuine extents to track the earliest usage they can find, followed by notable usages that demonstrate its changing spellings and usages; they also examine its etymology where possible, make reasonable speculations (marked as such) if it isn't possible, and state the the provenance is unknown when that isn't possible.
It should also be said that a word being in the OED doesn't "legitimise" it. English isn't a controlled language and while the OED is probably the most respected dictionary, it's still descriptive rather than proscriptive, which is why they demand multiple attributions over a period of five years or so. The idea is simply to include in the dictionary words that are reasonably extent amongst a part of the population. (And, of course, to frequently update the dictionary to drive new sales...)
(Score: 3, Funny) by yarp on Friday June 26 2015, @09:07AM
It does make a word allowable in the Letters round on Countdown [wikipedia.org] (as long as it has 9 or fewer letters, of course). How much more legitimate can it get?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @09:43AM
A good point well made :)
--boristhespider
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday June 26 2015, @01:44PM
Those of us who write and those of us who read. That said, if a word has never been used in a book the OED and Websters shouldn't touch it.
Larry Paige thinks his kid coined "google" in the late 1990s, but Mark Twin used it a hundred years earlier in "Huckleberry Finn". Amusingly, in Twain's book it means "drip slowly out". It reads "The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's googling out buttermilk..."
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday June 26 2015, @02:02AM
Twerking was a term we used when a firefighter is in full gear, its a sudden movement to prevent a PASS (Personal Alert Safety System) device from going out. The idea is when or SCBA gear was active, the high pressure air line activated the PASS. If you don't move when you're in gear, after 10-15 seconds, it would chirp, then send out a mayday signal to alert others you were non-responsive or otherwise in trouble.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:24AM
So you worked in pairs?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 26 2015, @02:18AM
But how far back does the current use of twerk go?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 26 2015, @02:34AM
My guess... about the same as the use of JavaScript (also in the new words list 2015 - go check).
No word still on jsnode or systemd :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @02:40AM
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @02:25AM
The Internet advances on a 24x7 basis, not dead tree publishing cycles!
(Score: 2) by GoonDu on Friday June 26 2015, @02:42AM
For all the internet language getting added, we need more love for the letter X. Else, playing scrabble with it will be a pain in the ass. At least "fap fap fap" would increase my chance of getting the triple score for word. Oh wait, only two letters for P. Well, might as well invent a new phrase - "fap fap fax": The art of sending pornography through fax.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday June 26 2015, @03:14AM
Know I know who to direct my righteous anger against.
There is some womens scholarship in europe that requires the applicants to twerk.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @03:31AM
The guy who wrote most of that dictionary was crazy:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Professor-Madman-Insanity-Dictionary/dp/0060836261 [amazon.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by nyder on Friday June 26 2015, @04:19AM
So apparently shipping no longer means sending a package out. I never got the memo.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 26 2015, @04:42AM
This may be of help to you. [reference.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:06AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by boristhespider on Friday June 26 2015, @06:51AM
You might want to entertain yourself and get a large dictionary and look up the entry for "set". It should fill a good few pages and demonstrate just how many different definitions a single word can have...
Not to defend "shipping" in this context, which is an irritating, adolescent use born of shitty websites indulging in shitty wish-fulfilment fan-fiction, but that's to comment on a usage of the language I don't particularly like - which is a different thing entirely. I don't think we can complain that a word has picked up an extra definition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:12PM
Wait, what? Not the irritating / adolescent / shitty bit, but "born of shitty websites"?
The word itself (in that sense) seems to have originated on usenet, and the practice of shipping predates both usenet and websites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @06:27AM
That word shouldn't exist. A minority within a minority were unhappy that straight people weren't being "labelled" and decided to come up with this. You know, because if someone needs a way to refer to a group then said group gets upset and childish and demands that all groups now need labels. Luckily the majority of the lgbtq community are cool people and think cisgender is stupid.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @06:59AM
Sounds like they found your trigger word :^)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:25AM
Different AC here, wondering why you think OP-AC seemed triggered?
He sure did fly off the handle imo
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday June 26 2015, @01:59PM
There seems to be a notion among MRAs that cisgendered is a pejorative. This is somewhat true, but only when describing a woman. See my other comment for etymology. The term is threatening to MRAs when it shouldn't be. In fact, I would argue that in the upcoming shitstorm concerning assigned males on the internet, the MRAs would do good to look to trans women as allies. We're all in the same boat here! Don't believe feminism when it claims to support trans women. They hate trans women, and that's where the term cisgendered comes from.
I believe that cisgendered should not be used to describe a man for the reasons I outlined.
There is nothing wrong with being cisgendered or heterosexual. Only the SJWs and their guilt worship believe there's something wrong with it, and they're merely trolling. They really have no fucking idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:30AM
Every well defined group has its own lingo. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @10:21AM
Well, it does sound a bit silly and it is often used as a pejorative, which are neither very good properties. However, I don't see how it's any less needed word than heterosexual since sometimes you really need to refer to "the other group" somehow and its derivation kinda makes sense when you compare it to terms like cis-fatty-acids.
I think I'd prefer if it was kept in more "technical" context instead of being lazily thrown around in everyday speak.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday June 26 2015, @01:52PM
I agree to an extent. The problem is late 2nd wave and 3rd wave feminists.
Trans women just want to be women. Fly under the radar. Like everybody else. Just fit in, etc.
Except the problem is that 2nd wave feminism invented this womyn-born-womyn thing to shame and exclude trans women. (Look up some of Sarah Conner's outbursts from T2 and Chronicles to see what I mean.) Like, I mean (like totally) I'm not even talking about trans women who can't “pass” (a superficial distinction). Feminists invented the art of doxxing because they couldn't stand the idea that folks who were otherwise indistinguishable from cisgendered women were “invading” them. See Raymond et al.
So Julia Serano comes along. She didn't start it, but she documented it in her work Whipping Girl. (I would recommend MRAs, especially redpillers, read this book, if they truly want to take the red pill. One does not need to agree with the olive branch she extends to 3rd wave feminism. I certainly don't, but the work has other merits.)
Basically, the word cisgender exists because of feminist transphobia. This term is specifically designed to objectify cisgendered women as a kind of “oh yeah?! no you dident [sic]” sense.
I would go so far as disapproving of the use of cisgender when describing a man. Trans men have different problems for sure, but they have no problem appearing as a man. The Chinese Amazons wrote me a few weeks ago to inform me that the Spring of Drowned Man had dried up because it's now possible to perform a penis transplant. The trouble for trans women is that the physical changes brought on by testosterone are irreversible, even with modern plastic surgery.
So, really, feminism brought this all on itself. Trans women don't want to be “trans” any more than anybody wants to be described as “cis.” However, something had to be done about the whole “womyn-born-womyn” thing.
For more info, see the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and the corresponding Camp Trans. I met a woman who was involved with Camp Trans once, and while I'm not sure I understand, it's a Big Thing. Truth be told, yours truly could waltz into the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival unquestioned (unless they check ID), but I'd rather stand with Camp Trans any day.
The Amazons get this. A woman is a woman and beauty is only skin deep. The feminists simply do not get this. A woman is not her animal functions. And the SJWs are beyond help.
Hope that helps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @10:45PM
I would go so far as disapproving of the use of cisgender when describing a man. Trans men have different problems for sure, but they have no problem appearing as a man.
Great news! I'll go right ahead and tell my trans* men friends that they'll never again be misgendered. They'll be ecstatic. But, seriously, I honestly don't understand why you have a problem with there existing a word that means "not trans*".
Talking about feminism's views of trans* identities while representing TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) [wikipedia.org] as the only, or even majority, view within feminism is highly misleading. It would be like reading a newspaper article about egalitarian movements which didn't bother to distinguish MRAs from feminists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @10:33PM
I'm missing something. How is having the word "cisgender" to give a word to the (culturally accepted) common case of gender identity any different from having the word "straight" to give a word to (culturally accepted) common case of sexual orientation? Or, for that matter, different from having the word "human" to give a word to the common case of species for sentient beings?
I guess I'm not surprised by people disagreeing with other people's views on gender identity, but I'm flabbergasted by someone taking offense in there being a descriptive word for a very common gender identity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @10:45AM
It is because in my first exposure the use came from a place of hate. Same is true for almost all uses I've seen since then (meta discussions about the meaning being the rest). As a straight white male it was enlightening having hate speech aimed my way, so in a way I'm grateful. That aside it is hate speech, clear from the context, so they should stop.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday June 26 2015, @01:24PM
Like guerrilla warfare? I believe has been around for hundreds of years. Even before the OED? Adding this to the dictionary is like Apple adding a decent keyboard to iOS, it should have always been there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2015, @09:08AM
I'm too lazy to RTFA and check in this case, but I'm pretty sure it is just a new definition for the word guerilla. I would bet they already had it included with an appropriate definition for the context of "guerilla warfare".