Oxford list helps spread the word
Those are just some of the new words added to /OxfordDictionaries.com in its latest quarterly update giving an insight into current language usage trends.
New entries include adorbs, binge-watch, humblebrag, listicle, neckbeard, side boob, vape, and Yolo — a favourite with teenagers which is an acronym of You Only Live Once.
Use of the word binge-watch has shown a steady increase over the past two years, with spikes in usage recorded around the releases of House Of Cards season two in February 2014 and Orange Is The New Black season two in June 2014.
According to Oxford’s language monitoring programme, the use of binge-watch increased fourfold in February and tripled in June, based on its average use over the last two years.
Changes in our media consumption habits also see hate-watch — watching a programme for the sake of the enjoyment derived from mocking or criticising it — and listicle — an internet article presented in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list — added.
Technology continues to have a strong influence on the English language, and is reflected in new entries including acquihire (acquiring a company for its employees with little interest in its business); clickbait (eyecatching link on a website which encourages people to read on); Deep Web (web content not accessed by regular search engines); dox (personal information being made available on the web); fast follower (business which later follows original idea of another, eg, Apple not first to stream music online); geocache (kind of outdoor treasure hunt where participants use GPS or other devices to hide and seek containers, called “geocaches” or “caches”, anywhere in the world); in silico (performed on or via a computer); octocopter (drone with eight blades); smartwatch, and tech-savvy.
The Oxford Corpus reveals an approximate tenfold increase in usage of the terms vape and e-cig in the last two years, as electronic devices which enable people to inhale smokeless nicotine vapour have become increasingly widespread.
E-cigarette, added to /OxfordDictionaries.comin August 2012, has seen an even sharper rise in usage.
However, despite the fact e-cigarettes were not commercially available until the 21st century, the word vaping dates to 1983, when it was used to describe a hypothetical smoking device being considered at the time.
Other informal or slang terms added include bank of mum and dad, bro hug, cray, hench (somebody who looks, but isn’t necessarily, huge, strong, muscular); hot mess, mansplain (combining man and explain, where man speaking to a woman assumes she knows less than he does about the topic on the basis of her gender) , side-eye (looking out side of eye at another in disapproving way), and spit-take (where someone imitates spitting a drink out of their mouth in a comic reaction to a statement.)
The new entries have been added to /OxfordDictionaries.com, not the Oxford English Dictionary.
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