Are We There Yet?

Attention all you linguists and lexicographers — the venerable scriveners at Merriam-Webster’s wordsmith shop have just released a passel of new words and phrases that have found their way into the newest pages of the 11th edition of the collegiate dictionary.

To herald the event (and certainly to the chagrin of the folks at Oxford), a quarter of the new words have been posted to the M-W Web site and a good quarter of the publicized words are tech-related — such as webisode: a television show viewable on the Internet, vlog: a blog filled with video content and green-collar; denoting an environmentally friendly professional career.

Some the words and phrases have been in use for some time, like zip line, fan fiction and sock puppet — the latter having gained new life with a new, more sinister definition from its original use in the 1950s when it was literally a puppet made from a sock. Sock puppet in the 21st century is defined as a false online identity used for deceptive purposes. A lot of the Web site commentators can relate to that one …

And some of the entries gained stardom and dictionary fame rather quickly — such as waterboarding, staycation and flash mob.

These handful of words join an ever-growing lexicon that can see as many as 10,000 new entries in a decade. The last time Merriam-Webster came out with a new edition — in 2003 — such colorful entries as dead-cat bounce, phreaker, waitron and gimme cap were added to the official American lexicon, as were such other oft-turned words like barista, tankini, longneck, Botox, Goth, brewski and tweener. (Interesting side note: the spell check on the computer on which I write doesn’t like any of the above “new” words — with the sole exception of Goth.)

But as they sow, so do they reap. There is no official documentation as to how many words are dropped from the dictionary each year — who really wants to keep track of that? — but old and antiquated words that have outlived their usefulness or simply fall out of usage do fall from grace with the editors and find themselves unceremoniously tossed into the dustheap of the past.

Such notables from the recent past include vitamin G, microcopy, ten cent store, portapak, pantdress and sheep-dip. These were all expunged from the M-W pages in 2003.

And then there are the rare few who fall out of favor — only to be recalled back into use. Wheatgrass was dropped from the the 8th edition only to be revived once more for the 11th.

So just how do word make the grade to qualify for the dictionary? The good folks at Merriam-Webster track print use of words from books to newspapers (see? They still have a use …) to magazines, such as: the New York Times, the New Yorker, Newsweek, People, Air & Space, Better Homes and Gardens, Cats, Consumer Reports, Yoga Journal, Discover, Harper’s, Library Journal, National Geographic, the New England Journal of Medicine, PC Magazine, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Time, TV Guide, Vanity Fair and Vogue, and Chocolatier (from a 2003 article in the San Francisco Chronicle).

They use a somewhat complex tracking system, apply a Google-esque algorithm or two and voila: new dictionary entires are born.

So as much as I would like to introduce a new word or two into the American culture, my chances of writing anytime soon for one of those publications remains slim — unless maybe I can crack the pages of Cats.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm by Ric Hallock and is filed under Esoterica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.