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© Virassamy
omg I heart
all these new
words LoL
We tend to view dictionaries as the dignified,
pipe-sucking grandfather of the book world.
They call the shots on all the drivel that falls
out of our mouths, don’t they? It’s a kind of
obvious surprise to anyone who didn’t study
linguistics to find that it’s very much the other
way around. But of course. The salaried wordsmiths
of dictionaries spend their days trawling
the earth for new words to add to the official
glossary, rummaging through conversations in
such undignified spaces as pub lounges, newspaper
columns and, heaven forbid, internet
forums. They make inventories of the things
we say, and then wait to see if they stick. If
they stick, they get added to the next edition.
We recently welcomed to the annals vuvuzela,
dubstep and stitch and bitch. We’ll have to wait
a little bit longer to judge the staying power of
4G, conflict minerals and twirting (flirting on
Neighbourhood
ˆ
“ But when future historians want to know how we communicated at the beginning of
the 21st century, do they really need to know about muffin top? ”
ˇ
Twitter – groan). Last year, the Oxford English
Dictionary confirmed what we have all giggled
at in private, mirthful circles: the unsightly
protruding flesh above a woman’s tight-waisted
trousers has a name, and it’s muffin top. It’s
said that a purpose of a dictionary is to act as a
record of the evolution of a language. But when
future historians want to know how we communicated
at the beginning of the 21 st century,
do they really need to know about muffin top?
What about OMG, LOL and (for fuck’s sake)
bromance? After all, not everybody around
here is 14. But while it would be ridiculous if
your granny started saying “OMG” it would be
equally weird if a 14 year old had never texted
it, either. (FYI: the rather spacey-sounding
non-word