"Woot" Becomes an Official Word

tekgoblin writes with a quick bit about new words in the COED. From the article: "Concise Oxford English Dictionary is the smaller but most widely recognized derivative of the official Oxford English Dictionary, which is celebrating this August its 100th anniversary. To celebrate, the lexicon published its 12th edition today that adds more than 400 new entries – many of which reflect the technological vocabulary found in today's society, like 'woot,' 'mankini,' and 'jeggings.'"

Comments

Re:I was on the fence....

[snowgirl]

but now I no longer have any respect for the OED

The OED is a descriptivist dictionary, as opposed to a prescriptivist dictionary. That means that the OED includes words that are actually being used, rather than prescribing which words should and should not be used. This means including words that many people object to, but too bad, there are a large number of people who use the word regardless of any official position about the word.

If you want to speak a language which has a prescriptivist authority, then I recommend French or Spanish, they have institutes that declare what is and is not proper language, and if you disagree, then you're wrong. If you want a language that is generally descriptivist, then stick with the Germanic languages, where we recognize that the authority on language is a native speaker, and not some people locked up in a room declaring that "ain't isn't a word" even though 70% of the population uses it on a regular basis.

Desperate Attempt to Stay Relevant

[Frosty Piss]

The problem with the Oxford English Dictionary is that it has become the "Guinness World Records" of dictionaries - adding all sorts of dumb-assed "words" for no other reason than to make the headlines and be "hip", with one single goal - get press to sell whatever it is they sell.

I'm guessing that they have some "on-line" product, as not too many people are buying huge multi-volume book series these days.

But rest assured, adding all this trendy "1337" crap and other new words that the young folks are spewing (get the fuck off my lawn) is being done *not* because these words have passed the test of time and are now semi-permanent in our lingual consciousness, but rather a desperate attempt of these "dictionaries" to stay relevant and thus stay profitable.