Just when you think the folks over at the Oxford English Dictionary couldn’t top themselves after recognizing the words “photobomb”, “hot mess” and “shizzle” in 2015, they go and do it again.
“Yolo” (short for you only live once), “moobs” (excess fat on a man’s chest that resemble a woman’s breasts) and “squee” (used to express great delight or excitement) are just a few of the buzz-worthy words that have made it onto the dictionary’s latest list of new and revised words of the year.
The Oxford English Dictionary updates its list of recognized words every three months. This time around over 500 new words have been added.
READ MORE: ‘ROFL’, ‘Scooby Snack’ among odd terms added to Oxford English Dictionary
But this year also marks the centennial of children’s book author Roald Dahl. According to NBC News, the dictionary decided to celebrate the milestone by including some of his most memorable made-up words, including Oompa Loompa, splendiferous and snozzcumbers, among others.
So who chooses what words make it in? They’re called the new words team and it’s comprised of 15 experts.
“It might seem romantic,” Jonathan Dent, senior assistant editor in the dictionary’s new words team, told The Guardian, “but it’s a lot of standard research, checks and balances. Anything new that goes into the dictionary is drafted and researched by us. It’s all down to evidence.”
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The team scours through a variety of material, including text collections and online databases and will usually wait until 10 years of evidence piles up before a word is officially added.
Some other interesting and surprising words to make the September 2016 list this round include:
- Biatch: a variation of a derogatory word
- Cheeseball: someone or something lacking taste, style or originality
- Clickbait: Internet content of a provocative nature with a main purpose of attracting attention and drawing visitors to a web page
- Gender-fluid: a gender which varies over time
- Jagoff: a derogatory slang term meaning a person who is stupid or inept
- Lolo: meaning “lowrider” or “crazy”
- Mang: a slang term meaning “man”
- ‘Merica: a slang term referring to “America”
- Shopaholism: a compulsive shopper
- Slacktivism: actions performed via the Internet to support a social or political cause but involve little time or involvement
The full list of words can be found here.
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