Tag: dictionary

Dictionary Gone, Dictionary Still to Come

The changing nature of English vocabulary has been neatly summed up by two recent stories from opposing ends of the linguistic spectrum. Both give us an insight of how our dictionaries might look over the next few years, but reached their conclusions in contrasting fashions.

The first was research by Disney’s Club Penguin into the language used by teenagers online. The result, unsurprisingly, is that for the most part, their parents don’t understand it. So Disney has published a Digital Dictionary as part of its overall online safety campaign as a way of helping parents to understand what their offspring are actually talking about.

So no longer will words like Keed, Dub and Derp be mystifying, while parents will be able to understand that in this context, Sick is good and Jelly is bad, and that is not just because of the after-effects of eating too much trifle.

The interesting thing for language watchers of course is whether the words in this specific dictionary have enough staying power to cross over into mainstream dictionaries, and whether this listing is just a passing fad that will fade into history, or is instead a tantalising glimpse of the OED in 50 years’ time.

And talking of 50 years, research by Lancaster University has given us an idea of how much language has changed over the last 50 years. They analysed millions of books, articles and speeches to come up with a list of the 2,500 most common words in the English language, and compared it with a list compiled half a century ago.

The results were not necessarily that surprising. Marriage, Religion and God are all on the decline, Sex and Celebrity are on the increase. Words such as Mobile, Internet and Computer are fairly obvious new arrivals.

The list of disappeared words really does capture the imagination and speak of a world now disappeared. Servant, Plough, Gaiety, Telegraph, Mill, Coal – all are redolent of times gone by. It is good to see Hunger going, but maybe the departure of Handshake points to a decline in manners.

So while the lexicographers of the future consider adding Yolo, Spinout and Noob to their pages in years to come, if they have to make space in printed editions, will Grammar, Comb and Bless be the things that make way? It is a sneak peek of the dictionary of tomorrow.

Selfies Come of Age

I have been pondering the word Selfie recently. Though not coined this year, it seems to have really emerged into public awareness in the last few months, with a number of mainstream publications focusing on the growth of them or the problems associated with their increasing prevalence. I have been weighing up writing about it for the last few weeks.

A Selfie, in case you don’t know, is a photograph that you take of yourself, normally with your phone, and then share with nearest and dearest via social media. A trend for some time, 2013 is the year when it has become cemented in the English language.

Oxford Dictionaries agrees. In the latest quarterly update to Oxford Dictionaries Online, Selfie has proudly taken its place as a new word. It’s one of a number of words that have taken a refreshingly short time to reach Oxford’s online annals, with Phablet, Space Tourism and Street Food others which seem to have been recognised relatively quickly.

There are also a couple of Wordability favourites making their debuts. Bitcoin was recognised earlier this year as an important word in the ongoing financial saga around the world, while last year’s triumphant Omnishambles has now sealed its emergence with its own entry.

Overall, it is an entertaining update. The challenge now is to write a coherent sentence feature Babymoon, Vom, Twerk, Flatform and Digital Detox. After all of that, I’ll need a glass of Pear Cider.

Not the End of the World. Literally

There has literally never been a reaction like it. The last bastion of linguistic pedantry knocked over. Reams of invective across the media. And why? Because the Oxford English Dictionary has done its job.

Alleged misuse of the word ‘Literally’ is one of the favourite bugbears of those who delight in nothing more than correcting other people’s grammar and bemoaning the apparent desecration of our beautiful language. Literally means ‘in a literal manner, exactly’, rather than its increasingly common usage as a word of emphasis and exaggeration, they say.

Except that the OED disagrees, and has in fact disagreed since 2011. It’s just that nobody noticed until this week that the definition had been extended to include the sense of emphasis, reflecting the way the word is actually used by speakers today.

Of course I wholly endorse the extended definition. As I have said literally thousands of times, language changes and those who document this need to recognise that evolution and record it, which is what has happened here.

What is funny about this story is that it seems to be the straw which has literally broken the camel’s back. There has been a wonderful outpouring of emotion on the subject. The alleged misuse of literally is the linguistic touch paper which stokes up all pedants, so this is the story which has enraged them more than any other.

But of course it is not the death of English as we know it, as some have suggested. It is just an acknowledgement that the English language is always changing, as the strap line of an excellent blog on new words points out.

Those who are upset by this change should literally get over it.

Phubbing Becomes A Phenomenon

Lets be honest. We’ve all done it. I’m not proud of it but I’ve definitely done it. And I’ve had it done to me as well. What am I talking about? Phubbing.

Phubbing, an amalgam of phone and snubbing, is defined as ‘The act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention’. The word is the brainchild of Melbournian Alex Haigh, who has set up the hilarious Stop Phubbing website as a way of drawing attention to the practice and allowing people to fight back and stop it. So successful has this been that the term is now going viral.

Stop Phubbing
Anti-Phubbing poster

It’s a brilliant word, undoubtedly one of my favourites of the year. Why, I hear you ask? Well firstly, it passes the test of being a semantic gap needing filling. This is a modern phenomenon, it is an emerging aspect of modern life, and when you talk to people about it, they all agree they’re aware of it. Well they would agree if they weren’t so busy sending Tweets.

Secondly, it’s a great neologism in its own right and blends the right two words to get the new one. Phubbing retains enough of the sense of its ancestry to aid understanding and stand alone, and also sounds just judgmental enough to make its point. It is also infinitely better than other options. I don’t think phignoring or phold-shouldering would really have cut it.

And its usage is already taking off and moving away from the original source. The day after reporting the advent of the word, The Independent used it in perfect context in a story about how crossing the road is dangerous when you are glued to your phone.

So phubbing as both a concept and a word is here to stay. I think we can all agree that it’s rude and people shouldn’t do it. Unless they’re reading Wordability of course, in which case it’s absolutely fine.

Gay Marriage Already Recognised

The Oxford English Dictionary is thinking about extending its definition of marriage to include Gay Marriage. At least, that is what you would believe if you were to read the coverage this story has received in the last week.

Except it’s not really true. Because the OED has already done it.

The story that prompted the flurry of reaction appeared in the Gay Stay News, quoting an OED spokeswoman as saying: “We continually monitor the words in our dictionaries, paying particular to those words whose usage is shifting, so yes, this will happen with marriage.”

But what appeared to be a significant language story was nothing of the sort, despite the number of sources which then picked it up and used it to further whichever side of the argument they subscribe to. Because when Wordability contacted the OED, I got the following statement:

“Many of our dictionaries including the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as oxforddictionaries.com, already include references to same sex-marriage as part of their definitions. Dictionaries reflect changes in the use of language, rather than changes in law, and we are constantly monitoring usage in this area in order to consider what revisions and updates we may need to make. The English language is always developing and, along with many other words, we will continue to monitor the way in which ‘marriage’ is used.”

Here is a link to the definition, which includes the meaning “(in some jurisdictions) a union between partners of the same sex”. Now that seems pretty cut and dried to me. What is weird is that this definition is included in the Gay Star Times story, but never let that get in the way of a good headline. The story dismisses it by saying that campaigners object to this definition, calling it discriminatory, beause if it is law in any country it should be on the same ‘ranking’ as a heterosexual union.

I am happy to admit there may be minutiae of this debate that I don’t understand, but it seems to be that this is a pretty good position for campaigners. The most highly regarded dictionary in the world already has the definition included, and also acknowledges that it is a changing situation. But what it doesn’t do is in any way suggest that an alternative word is needed, as many daft people have continued to argue and Wordability has continually battled against.

It would seem only a matter of time before the OED definition evolves again, and with the gay marriage meaning already encapsulated, it appears that the correct linguistic conclusion will be reached for this particular story.

A Shitstorm in Germany

Good to see that an English word has gone down a storm in Germany. A shitstorm, in fact.

Fresh from celebrating its success as Anglicism of the Year in 2012, shitstorm has now achieved official recognition by being included in Duden, Germany’s foremost dictionary.

The word really came to prominence during the Eurozone crisis, and was picked up by Chancellor Angela Merkel. However, its Germanic usage differs from its original English sense of total chaos to mean a storm of protest, primarily on the internet.

While it is obviously good to see English invading German, it is a shame that the Germans didn’t coin their own new word for this, perhaps one of their famous compound nouns? After all, the language is still on the lookout for a successor to Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungs-aufgabenuebertragungsgesetz, the longest word in the language which famously bit the dust a few weeks ago.

Maybe we should push for Germany to vote for flockynockynihilipilification as its next English word of the year.

The Truth About Husbands And Wives

As moves to legalise gay marriage rumble on, so the effect on the English Language continues to be a live issue. I have argued in the past that attempts to introduce a brand new word to describe such unions are misguided.

The latest developments in the UK had some of the right wing press in a foment of rage. Men can be wives and women can be husbands, they raged, as the minutiae of Government legislation began to be picked apart.

The issue comes in the fine print of new official guidance for MPs and clarifies what words will mean as the bill is debated in parliament. In some contexts, husband and wife will be allowed to be used interchangeably for those who are part of same-sex couples, so indeed men will be wives and women will be husbands. The vocabulary of “cloud cuckoo land”, the critics lambast.

It’s easy to see why this makes a good headline, and why on the surface, this might be a story to get exercised about. After all, redefining basic words like husband and wife is surely wrong. But behind every good headline there is of course the truth.

And the truth is that this is simply about the past, about how to understand the way that old legislation has been written. Where the words husband and wife have been used, in this context, it can refer to either partner in a same sex-marriage.

The guidance cites early health and safety legislation from 1963 which includes a range of exemptions for family businesses where the terms husbands and wives will mean people of either gender. It says: “This means that ‘husband’ here will include a man or a woman in a same sex marriage, as well as a man married to a woman.”

Is this language being redefined? No, it is instead a pragmatic approach to avoid rewriting reams and reams of old legislation, a sensible acknowledgement that for this old legalese, a wider interpretation is needed.

It is not a suggestion that future legislation will use husband and wife in anything other than a gender-specific way. In future, a man married to either a woman or a man will be a husband, and a wife married to someone of either sex will be referred to as a wife. No confusion there.

A spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage said: “We always knew the Government would tie itself in knots trying to redefine marriage, and this shows what a ridiculous mess they’ve created.”

No, this shows how critics will jump on anything to try and get a cheap headline.

Liliger Liliger Burning Bright

I must admit that the birth of the world’s first liliger passed me by last year. But fear not. The arrival of three more liligers has propelled this new species, and neologism, across the world’s media.

The liliger litter has been born at Novosibirsk zoo in Russia to a lion father (Sam) and a liger mother (Zita), a liger being a cross-breed between a lion and a tiger.

Whether this word has a long life is of course entirely dependent on the future course of the world’s liliger population. Given that there are only four of them at present, and they are all female, the prospects don’t look great. This may be a word that only covers a single generation of animals and then retreats into history. Or perhaps when older, a liliger will mate with a lion, creating a lililiger.

I dread to think how many syllables we might need for their great-great-grandchildren.

Tweets Point to Fresh OED Future

I have often bemoaned the length of time it takes for the Oxford English Dictionary to include new words in its official annals. But I also recognise that the OED cannot include anything and everything as soon as it emerges, as it is the ultimate record of words in the English language and can only include those words that are here to stay.

But now there is evidence that things might be about to speed up, albeit that this is only in proportion to the previous tardiness. Alongside its raft of new but strangely familiar words, such as e-reader, dad dancing and fiscal cliff, the new OED update contains an expansion of the meaning of Tweet, to include its social media senses for both noun and verb.

What, I hear you say, it’s only just been included, surely that’s been around for ages. Correct, I retort, but in OED terms, it is still a veritable foetus, not yet born to lexicographical life. And yet it now appears. In what was termed ‘A Quiet Announcement’ in a piece by chief editor John Simpson, he said that the definition breaks an OED rule, namely that a word has to be in use for 10 years before being considered for inclusion, with Tweet in its Twitter sense numbering around six years. As a reason for inclusion, Mr Simpson jokes: “But it seems to be catching on.”

I wonder if this is a sign of things to come. Will the fact that things now ‘catch on’ much quicker mean that as time goes on, OED rules will finally become a little less stringent? Will the new speed with which words become entrenched in the language finally mean a new fast track to their official recognition. I do hope so. Language evolution has been changed forever by technology, and those who work in this world need to recognise and respond to that. Let this be the start of that change.

Is Cleansing Reduction Really a Trend?

There is an exciting new trend in the world of beauty, apparently. ‘Cleansing Reduction’ is the hot new thing. It means washing less, showering once or twice a week, in the belief that washing every day strips your skin of natural oils and bugs and it is therefore healthier to do it at a reduced frequency.

This story has had substantial pick-up around the world and lots of excited comment from people, eager to share their showering rituals or to express disgust at those loathsome folk who don’t live permanently in a vat of shower gel.

But I wonder if there is a nonsense at the heart of it. Is there really a new trend called ‘cleansing reduction’? Is there any actual proof of this new habit, beyond the results of one survey, which has been picked up by a couple of respected publications and then gone viral?

From what I can tell, the answer is no. I cannot find anything about this subject, and certainly not this new term, beyond the extensive coverage of the original story. And so it is a triumph for tissue manufacturer SCA, who commissioned the survey at the heart of this news.

I see many press releases where a company has tried to coin a new word in the hope that it will be picked up, and the new word will resonate in headlines and so gain them coverage. The tactic seldom seems to work. On this occasion it has done, and there is now a chance that the phrase cleansing reduction will indeed become a new trend, even though it probably wasn’t before, and so it will become self-fulfilling.

As cleansing is reduced so language is expanded.