OMG, you guys, there’s like a ton of new words now.
The Oxford English Dictionary performed its first of four updates this year, adding dozens of new words to the lexicon. Some of them could be considered actual words with relevance to everyday life, especially in the tech fields. Words like “crowdsourcing,” and “scareware,” come to mind, in addition to “cyberbullying” and “sexting,” which, while in themselves are a comment on our declining culture, actually denote real things.
Then there’s the just the purely ridiculous: degenerative language, texting jargon, and onomatopoeias that would surely embarrass even novice linguists.
Among those that highlight the sacrificing of the beauty of language for the constrained spaces of Twitter or a text, or simply out of sheer laziness, are: “prolly” (short, of course for probably); “sammich” (as in, “Woman, get in here and make me a sammich!” Aren’t we so enlightened?); “wassup” (which seems a little late, didn’t those Budweiser commercials ran about ten years ago?); and “to heart” (as in, I “heart” destroying our poor, defenseless language). So, now two interlocutors could, in good linguistic conscience, have a conversation that goes: “Wassup?” “Not much. I could prolly go for a sammich. I heart sammiches.” Gracious.
Next up for enshrinement in the venerable OED are a pile of useless abbreviations for almost equally useless phrases (we’re getting so meta here it’s fantastic). Of course there’s “OMG” (pronounced “Oh-Em-Gee,” which stands for “Oh My God,” pronounced “omigod,” and is also a cutesy way of blaspheming), “tbh” (“to be honest”), and “tmi” (“too much information,” which, as with “wassup,” was like “sooo ten years ago”), and the grandaddy of them all, LOL (“laughing out loud”), proving that those who want to cling to a decent form of the English language are SOL.
Then we have my personal favorite, the onomatopoeias. Things like “woot” (a joyous exclamation), “fnarr fnarr” (which is apparently sniggering, but seems to me just a short step away from a Thundercats-eque “Snarf,” and if that happens it’s all over), “nom nom” (which expresses the pleasure of gluttony, and which is just so embarrassing, to wit: Mmm, chocolate covered pretzels, nom nom.), and “meep” (which could express sheepishness or fear…I think). Whether Shakespeare is meeping or fnarr fnarring in his grave right now is up for debate.
Finally, there’s the hodgepodge of other new “words” that have made their way into our language. Words like “bromance” and “tanorexia” seem to have been nominated by the frat boy/Jersey Shore crowd, while others like “muffin top,” “light-bulb moment” (because saying, “I had a realization” is just way too lame), “bloggable,” and “buttload” (yes, buttload) spring from all corners of the devolved human mind.
Language reflects culture, and this is an ugly reflection.
And if none of the words above mean anything to you, repair to a cave somewhere and start transcribing the Western canon. The world may thank you someday soon.
