‘OMG’ and ‘Bromance’ – Additions to English dictionaries
Languages evolve with new words added to our daily word set and others disappearing completely. Most words that have emerged in the past 5 years or so are technology-related with phenomena, job titles and gadgets not known before that. Especially the increased communication that is happening online can take credit for a few ‘words’ that have emerged from it. Acronyms and abbreviations are nowadays very popular among the young population mainly because of saving time when emailing and texting with friends.
Here is a list of words that have recently been added to well-established dictionaries. To keep up to date with new additions you can check the website of the Oxford English Dictionaries. Some examples I found interesting are the following:
Bling (expensive jewelry)
Bromance (close friendly relationship between tow men)
Chillax (to relax)
Hater (a person who dislikes somebody)
Muggle (reference to the Harry Potter franchise, a person who is not conversant with a particular skill)
Noob (a person who is inexperienced in a particular field)
OMG (acronym of “Oh my God” and is used to express surprise and excitement)
Unfriend (reference to social networks, it means to remove a person from the list of friends)
Whatevs (abbreviation for “Whatever”)
Woot (expression to show enthusiasm)
Regarding this subject I found this article in the blog of New York Times which talks about writers using words that are not to be found in dictionaries. These are called “dark matter”.
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