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posted by cmn32480 on Friday June 26 2015, @01:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-is-this-world-coming-to dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 26 2015, @02:09AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 26 2015, @02:09AM (#201350) Journal

    "Twerk" is legitimate language. It's over 100 years old.

    And it's also a classy dance in 2015.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @02:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @02:37AM (#201356)

    "Twerk" is legitimate language. It's over 100 years old.

    I have a hunch fucking is older than that.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM (#201358) Journal

      I have a hunch fucking is older than that.

      Huh! Not to mention it also designates one of the oldest and most ubiquitous dances in on this Earth.

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday June 26 2015, @02:39AM (#201357) Homepage

    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

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2015, @02:42AM (#201360) Journal
      I don't know. Because the vernacular didn't frequently go to strip-clubs?
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      • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 26 2015, @03:04AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday June 26 2015, @03:04AM (#201364) Homepage

        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

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2015, @04:57AM (#201391) Journal

          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.

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        • (Score: 2) by boristhespider on Friday June 26 2015, @06:48AM

          by boristhespider (4048) on Friday June 26 2015, @06:48AM (#201414)

          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

            by yarp (2665) on Friday June 26 2015, @09:07AM (#201443)

            It should also be said that a word being in the OED doesn't "legitimise" it.

            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

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @09:43AM (#201450)

              A good point well made :)

              --boristhespider