The English language is definitely a living, growing thing. Oxford Dictionaries Online shows us proof every quarter, as they add new words made popular enough to warrant an entry.
Here are some of the ones in the most recent release that I quite like or at least found amusing:
- Group hug: a number of people gathering together to hug each other, typically to provide support or express solidarity
- Guilty pleasure: movies, TV shows, music or other things you like but think others don’t hold in high regard (for me, that would be Dancing With The Stars and What Not To Wear)
- Mwahahaha: an exclamation used to represent laughter, especially cackling laughter used by villains in cartoons
- Photobomb: to spoil a photo of someone or something by suddenly appearing in it as the picture is taken, typically as a joke.
And these are really just annoying, although I realize that some are popular because they save space on Twitter:
- DW: stands in for “Darling/Dear Wife”
- Inbox: as a verb, as in “inbox me”
- OH: other half (kind of like DW)
- Ridic: of course, short for “ridiculous,” because who has time to spell it in full?
- UX: user experience
- UI: user interface
Which ones did you like or dislike?
Thanks, Sue. I’m so happy to add “vajazzle” to my lexicon. Seriously, who comes up with these terms?
Ha! That’s not one I have had occasion to use, nor do I expect to. But good to know it’s there, should we need it! Thanks for commenting.