The Oxford University Press might have just become Stephen Colbert's new BFF. The prestigious publisher added Colbert's "truthiness" to the New Oxford American Dictionary, according to the list of new dictionary words offered on the OUP blog on September 16, 2010. "Truthiness" was the word of the year for Merriam-Webster in 2006, but Oxford takes longer to decide if a word is worthy of dictionary status.
Slang Words that are Dictionary Words
Some of the slang words that Oxford has so recently promoted to dictionary words have been around for years. A check on Urban Dictionary shows how long some of the words waited for the glorious moment under the printing press:
- "BFF" appeared on Urban Dictionary on November 1, 2001. It took Oxford over 8 years to acknowledge the term.
- "Herding Cats" made it to Urban Dictionary on December 22, 2005. Oxford over 1700 days to accept the phrase.
- "Bromance" was Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day in 2006 and 2009. It was first defined on January 13, 2004 on Urban Dictionary as "an emotional attraction between bros... Ben Affleck and Matt Damon had a total bromance going on." The word has been ignored by Oxford for the entire decade in which it was primarily used.
Oxford is fastidious about what words are actually words. Homer Simpson first sputtered, "D'oh!" in 1988, but Oxford didn't consider it a word until a full decade later. It takes longer for words to get chosen for the Oxford Dictionary than other dictionaries.
How Do Words Get into the Dictionary?
Merriam-Webster and Oxford have different standards for putting words into dictionaries. According to Merriam-Webster's explanation of how a word is chosen to be printed into a dictionary, "The answer is simple: usage." If a word is used frequently, it is a candidate for the dictionary. It needs to be used frequently and there must be enough space in the edition of the dictionary to add a new word.
It isn't so easy for a word to leap onto the pages of an Oxford Dictionary. According to Blowin' in the Wind, "The OED is conservative in its approach to language, keeping out newfangled words until they have been around for a few years at least. But once a word gets into the dictionary, it stays there forever." This delay in acceptance has caused the some of the words announced on September 16, 2010 to already feel outdated; who really uses phrases like "be all that" and "my bad" anymore?
Dictionaries are more than just spell checking resources; they are the proof of a word's acceptance into educated usage. Oxford is picky because if it is in an Oxford dictionary, it is an official, standardized word and not just slang. Oxford won't unfriend (v. informal: remove) a word, but showing up in a tag cloud (n.: user-generated tags attached to online content) or the Interweb (n. humorous: the Internet) isn't enough, because OUP is straightedge big media (n. main means of mass communication).
Sources
"Colbert's 'Truthiness' Triumphs as Word of the Year" by CBS Arts was published on December 9. 2006.
"D'oh A Dictionary Update" by Blair Shewchuk was published by CBS New Online on July 17, 2001.
"How Does a Word get into a Merriam-Webster Dictionary?" was accessed on Merriam-Webster on September 17, 2010.
"How Words get into the Oxford English Dictionary" was published on the blog Blowin' in the Wind on August 24, 2010.
"My BFF just told me “TTYL is in the dictionary. LMAO." was published by Oxford University Press on September 16, 2010. Definitions for unfriend, "tag cloud, Interweb, straightedge, and big media came from the list of New Oxford American words listed.
Words from Urban Dictionary were accessed on September 17, 2010. "Bromance" was written by Pedro Calhoun.
Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
