Today in TechRetweet, Sexting, Cyberbullying: The Concise Oxford English Dictionary’s newest words
After LOL and OMG made it in, it was only a matter of time. The latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is out in stores today, and it lets a stampede of modern, webby words into the fold — and some of them may seem much more at home online than in a canonical, printed tome of the English language.
What are the new additions? Among the roughly 400 new words, Oxford has added cyberbullying (a term so weighty even the president responded to it), sexting (flirtatious, sexual text messaging), retweet (republishing another Twitter user's tweet), and woot, a word used in online chatting to express enthusiasm or triumph.
The web is shaping the English language, but will these words really stay relevant? The Concise Oxford English Dictionary included now-obscure slang like 'foozle' and 'piffle' in its very first edition. Oxford still has its finger on the pulse of modern times, and doesn't seem concerned that "jeggings" are a passing fad (it added that one too).
To make room for the new words, Oxford had to throw out a handful of others, like 'brabble,' defined as 'a paltry noisy quarrel.' Let's just hope they didn't really foozle it this time.
[via TheNextWeb]
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