‘FML,’ ‘YOLO,’ ‘Douchebaggery’ Added to Online Oxford Dictionary
Not to be outdone by the dubstep-loving, selfie-taking wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster, the Oxford Dictionary has added a slew of Internet-era words in the August update of their online dictionary including, “amazeballs,” “binge-watch,” “hate-watch,” “FML,” SMH,” “douchebaggery” and, yes, “YOLO.” Bravo, Drake.
In a post that reads more than slightly like your mom’s attempt to use as much slang as possible, the OD writes, “Throw an air punch or have a bro hug (don’t be cray and throw shade or show us the side-eye); be a baller and join the hyperconnected vocabulary fandom and read on to discover which new words from the worlds of popular culture, technology, the news, and more have been added to OxfordDictionaries.com.” (Try to guess which words in that sentence now have definitions.)
The update is unsurprisingly rife with web slang (or as the OD calls it, “informal terms”), including “click bait,” “listicle,” “catfish,” “adorbs” and “hench,” the latter being popular in the U.K. to describe a “strong, fit” fellow. Comedian Harris Wittels also scored a linguistic coup, as his creation, the “humblebrag,” has now brought him everything from Twitter fame to a book deal to immortalization on the dictionary’s website.
Advances in technology also provided plenty of new words, with the “Deep Web,” “e-cig,” “quadcopter,” “vape,” and “in silico” (research or experiments done through computer modeling or simulation) all getting their own definitions. The Oxford Dictionary did, however, do some catching up, including in their update time-honored entertainment terms like “spit take” and “hot mic,” as well as “throw shade,” a term that originated in drag competitions during the mid-80s.
Not only does the Oxford Dictionary’s update follow Merriam-Webster’s “hashtag”-friendly additions, but it also comes after that company updated their official Scrabble dictionary to include words like “chillax,” “beatbox,” “tester,” and “GeoCache,” the first ever word chosen by fans during the Scrabble Word Showdown.