Monday, June 1, 2015

New additions to the dictionary ~ #MondayBlogs


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


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