NEVER GAVE IT ANY THOUGHT
When it comes to thinking, the one thing that I never gave much thought to is the dictionary.
I use it profusely but I guess I always thought that the words I looked up were in it since its beginning.
So when I read about the dictionary being updated this year I couldn't help thinking, well of course how stupid of me.
The new dictionary is adding 100 new words.
Ginormous. What do you think about that word?
Here is a part of the article.
There's "crunk," a style of Southern rap music; the abbreviated "DVR," for digital video recorder; and "IED," shorthand for the improvised explosive devices that have become common in the war in Iraq.
If it sounds as though Merriam-Webster is dropping its buttoned-down image with too much talk of "smackdowns" (contests in entertainment wrestling) and "telenovelas" (Latin-American soap operas), consider it also is adding "gray literature" (hard-to-get written material) and "microgreen" (a shoot of a standard salad plant.)
No matter how odd some of the words might seem, the dictionary editors say each has the promise of sticking around in the American vocabulary.
"There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like `ginormous,'" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. "But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power."
One of those naysayers is Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society.
"A new word that stands out and is ostentatious is going to sink like a lead balloon," he said. "It might enjoy a fringe existence."
But Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous.
Well the first thing I thought of when I read this word 'ginormous', was slang and that is what the article says too.
So why can't these words just go into a book of slang and leave my dictionary alone. I have enough pages to thumb through looking for the words that I really need.
However if they are going to put 100 new words in the dictionary, some of which they consider slang, then I better see the words 'Blog and Blogger' among them or I think we should all protest, because we are not a passing fancy.
You and I may come and go, but the ' blog ' is here to stay!
I use it profusely but I guess I always thought that the words I looked up were in it since its beginning.
So when I read about the dictionary being updated this year I couldn't help thinking, well of course how stupid of me.
The new dictionary is adding 100 new words.
Ginormous. What do you think about that word?
Here is a part of the article.
There's "crunk," a style of Southern rap music; the abbreviated "DVR," for digital video recorder; and "IED," shorthand for the improvised explosive devices that have become common in the war in Iraq.
If it sounds as though Merriam-Webster is dropping its buttoned-down image with too much talk of "smackdowns" (contests in entertainment wrestling) and "telenovelas" (Latin-American soap operas), consider it also is adding "gray literature" (hard-to-get written material) and "microgreen" (a shoot of a standard salad plant.)
No matter how odd some of the words might seem, the dictionary editors say each has the promise of sticking around in the American vocabulary.
"There will be linguistic conservatives who will turn their nose up at a word like `ginormous,'" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. "But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power."
One of those naysayers is Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society.
"A new word that stands out and is ostentatious is going to sink like a lead balloon," he said. "It might enjoy a fringe existence."
But Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous.
Well the first thing I thought of when I read this word 'ginormous', was slang and that is what the article says too.
So why can't these words just go into a book of slang and leave my dictionary alone. I have enough pages to thumb through looking for the words that I really need.
However if they are going to put 100 new words in the dictionary, some of which they consider slang, then I better see the words 'Blog and Blogger' among them or I think we should all protest, because we are not a passing fancy.
You and I may come and go, but the ' blog ' is here to stay!
posted by EXSENO at 7:13 AM
11 Comments:
Blogger and blog should both definitely be in the dictionary!
Btw, I am going back to school the semester doesn't start until august 22nd though. So I'm eagerly awaiting some knowledge!
Becky,
Good for you, you're doing what I always wished I could do. Envy.
Hi Exseno,
I am with you dear in this protest...
:)
Hope you are fine there.
Take care
Blogging is the evolved form of epistolary writing; it's definitely here to stay until the next influx of technology; who knows what that will be!
Id it is,
Have you seen the new ten thousand dollar computer that Bill Gates just presented. There is no key board. It's just a huge screen. You can lay it on a table and you do everything by putting your hand on the screen, when you touch it it moves like ripples of water.
i so agree.
yeah i agree...you have to adapt to the modern world...the language will die if it does not adapt the changing world....
and i better see blogosphere, blogger, and blog in there!...i strongly believe it will be in the dictionnary in a few years if the blogword is still in existance...
we are the ones to decide whether the blogosphere will continue to exist...
thanks for stopping by.....
the translation will be up in the morning!
Is Oxford Dictionary being updated too? hmm @ slang words .. I wonder why they always change the language to accommodate the slang users. Today conversations are full of words such as "like" and "stuff" .. pity.
Nabeel,
I don't know if they are going to update the Oxford Dictionary, I think every so often they update all of them.
stopping by to say hi!
Crunk needs to stay in the urban/slang dictionary, not Websters. And ginormous? I hate that word. Someone just said it to me the other day and I immediately thought of my Grandma...not that I hate my granny.
It's just that I always thought it was a word she made up and my sisters and I always secretly make fun of it.
If they are going to add any new words, they should add "tada". Right EXSENO? ;)
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