Dynamic Dictionary?!

Write at Home Mom is pleased to introduce guest blogger David Rice with today's vocabulary lesson!


The announcement that the word retweet is to be included in the 2011 edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary has come as no great surprise to fans of social media. Twitter has well over 200 million users around the world now, and this figure is on the increase every month. It was first launched in 2006, when creator Jack Dorsey sent the very first tweet.

New inclusions into the dictionary are added every year, and are often good indicators of our society and the way we interact. A less pleasant new word for 2011 is cyberbullying, which has become a hot news item in the past 12 months.

In 2010, one of the new words to have a dictionary listing was vuvuzela. The 2010 World Cup was held in South Africa, and the constant humming of these makeshift musical instruments became a strong focus of attention. While some commentators felt they added a certain color to the tournament, many others thought they blighted the whole competition.

Many dictionaries of the late 2000s started to include the phrase air quotes in their newer editions. We’ve become used to seeing people use this rather irritating gesture to accentuate what they’re saying, so it came as no great surprise when it became officially recognized by lexicographers around the world.

Facial hair comes in several shapes and sizes for men around the world, and in recent years many people have experimented with a new look. In 2006, soul patch became recognized by dictionary compilers, and the fuzzy addition has become popular with several celebrities, including David Villa, Jack Black and Bruce Springsteen.

Another new phrase that has become officially sanctioned in the past decade is duvet day, which describes an unplanned day off work in which the individual plans to do very little. While they are doing just that, it may be wise to chillax, a word that was accepted into dictionaries in the latter half of the 2000s.

Way back in 2001, the rise in popularity of the microscooter led to another new inclusion. Others that year included bladdered, chatterbot, hottie, ladette, weblog, retail therapy, and minger. From the world of entertainment, we got mockumentary, and in Australia we became aware of the sad plight of the Stolen Generation.

David Rice is based in the UK and is a keen follower of the way our society communicates. He doesn’t own a microscooter, because he prefers to use a car leasing agreement instead.