Imagine being an ESL (English as a second language) student
nowadays. You think you’ve learned the English language and you’re feeling
really proud. That’s when someone complains to you about their textpectation (anticipation of receiving
a TEXT message); you hear others laughing about being photobombed (having an unexpected guest appear in a photo); and
when you look puzzled, some stranger tells you to stop acting like a derp (to express actual or feigned
ignorance or stupidity).
What language is this?
Several times a year “new” words are added to our dictionaries.
These words are basically invented to fit new technology, they were once considered
slang, some sound funny, and somehow these strange sounds get legitimized and
become actual ammunition for our Scrabble-board games. Schoolchildren even win
spelling bees by spelling these once made-up words.
Some of the more recent entries into
our dictionary include: humbility (the
quality of being humble); rainborical
(relating to the colors of the rainbow); jeggings
(leggings resembling a tight pair of jeans); eggcorn (a word or phrase that sounds like and mistakenly used for
another word or phrase); and of course there’s WTF (an exclamation of surprise or outrage). You can read about
more added words in the Unabridged Merriam-Webster Dictionary right here http://bit.ly/1IZ1uD4
As for me I look forward to the next
game of Scrabble, jeggings is an
18-point word and eight letters; just find an S on the board, put the other
seven tiles down and earn a 50-point bonus. Win-win!
Pencil Dictionary ~ public domain image from pdpics.com
No comments:
Post a Comment