Merriam-Webster is adding 150 new words to its collegiate dictionary this year. You already know most of them, just from using the internet, even if you don’t use them in your daily spoken language. Some of them may be words you told yourself you’d never use because they aren’t real words. Does inclusion in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary make them real for you?
"So many of these new words show the impact of online connectivity to our lives and livelihoods," explains Peter Sokolowski, Editor at Large for Merriam-Webster. "Tweep, selfie, and hashtag refer to the ways we communicate and share as individuals. Words like crowdfunding, gamification, and big data show that the Internet has changed business in profound ways."
New culinary terms include pho ("a soup made of beef or chicken broth and rice noodles"), turducken ("a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey"), and the Canadian favorite poutine ("a dish of French fries covered with brown gravy and cheese curds").
To add the the wailing and gnashing of teeth, yes, steampunk is on the list. I wonder how long it will be before my autocorrect recognizes these new words. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be a list of all 150 new words, but you can see plenty of them, with linked definitions, in Merriam-Webster’s press release. -via the Presurfer
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