OED: Making sense of our nonsense

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), that venerable keeper of the language, recently released its latest quarterly update.

Though it may be impossible to truly measure, English is thought to have the most words of any major modern language. While it shares its roots with German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Dutch and several others, this language has been adding words at a faster clip than its siblings for nearly a millennium. With huge contributions from French and Latin to random words from extinct tribal languages (think “hammock” and “hurricane”), English has become a global language not simply in its usage, but also in its makeup.      

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), that venerable keeper of the language, recently released its latest quarterly update, adding more than 1900 new words (or new meanings for known words) to the official lexicon. It should surprise no one that this list includes a solid round of acronyms (or initialisms) inspired by our text and social media-obsessed culture.

OMG (Oh My God) is now officially a part of the English language. As are LOL, BFF, IMHO, FYI and TMI. (Laughing Out Loud, Best Friend(s) Forever, In My Humble [or Honest] Opinion, For Your Information, and Too Much Information, respectively.) The OED identifies these expressions as trends not just in electronic communication, but in regular speech as well.  Perhaps your teenaged daughter has recently told you: “OMG, Dad, that is TMI, LOL!” Well, you don’t have to be clueless anymore.

Another new acronym, WAG, seems to have rocketed out of the sports world. The entry, short for Wives And Girlfriends, was initially printed in 2002, when the Sunday Telegraph reported that the staff at the England footballers’ pre-World Cup training camp were using it to refer to the players’ partners. In subsequent World Cups, the term has become increasingly popular, particularly with the notoriety of athletes’ wives like Victoria Beckham.  So, as the OED reports, sentences like “dresses that, unless you’re a WAG, are best worn with small heels instead of stilettos” would have probably made no sense to us several years ago. Thank goodness for the OED.

Other new words include “heart” as a verb, a text-ish trend that has its roots in t-shirts and bumper stickers, and food expressions from the States: “California roll” and “doughnut hole.” From Australia, the OED introduces “flat white,” a type of espresso drink, and “tragic,” for someone who is boring or socially inept.

Food and culture come together for “muffin top,” a new-to-the-OED expression for the bit of fat that hangs over your pants. This seems sadly propelled by the insatiable global hunger for skinny jeans. 

“Dot-bomb,” “couch surfing,” and “smack talk” round out our list of favorites. They’re words we’ve been using for years, so it’s nice to know that they’re now legitimate.

As a bonus, the OED’s new site is now employing some pretty sophisticated search analysis, so the people behind the OED can also let us in on what words people look for the most. The results from January show, somewhat oddly, that the word “dictionary” leads the pack. This was followed, however, by the words “love,” “culture,” and “nice.” We wonder how many of these people were recently told that they “don’t know the meaning of the word…”