Oxford University Press has announced the second edition of its one-stop Oxford Dictionary of English, the "foremost single-volume authority on the English language." Don't get me wrong here. I know that language changes, and in fact, I get a chuckle out of those who despair that this is somehow cause for alarm. And yet,
The world of TV has given us BADA BING (courtesy of the US TV show The Sopranos), LOVELY JUBBLY (from Only Fools and Horses), REALITY TV, and MUPPET (meaning an incompetent or foolish person), while entertainment is now full of BOY and GIRL BANDS, BOOTYLICIOUS POPSTRELS, and TURNTABLISTS who are DA BOMB. It's enough to make you want to JUMP THE SHARK!
In science and technology, the fast-moving field of Genetics has given us some colourful new terms: it's a world of PATHOGENICITY ISLANDS, SHOTGUN CLONING, PHARMING, and TERMINATOR GENES. Meanwhile, the Web has become a place of HACKTIVISTS, SHOVELWARE, and people who EGOSURF.
Umm, yeah. Okay. They posted a nearly 70-page pdf file with all of the new additions, some of which seem quite obvious to me (bike as slang for bicycle or motorcycle), and many, many more that seem like an attempt to attract attention from the news (not to mention language curmudgeons around the globe).
Oh, yeah. Blog is in there, right where it belongs, among "bitch-slap," "blamestorming," and "blonde moment."
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