New words and definitions published today in the Macmillan Dictionary show how social media, lifestyle trends and new technology are driving linguistic change faster than ever.
The Macmillan Dictionary has just had an update.
This time, the reach of social and online media means Internet-friendly abbreviations and words such as rents, mwah, soz, hater and totes have made an official entry. They aren’t only entering daily English conversation, but appear far and wide — enough to merit an entry in a dictionary with a truly global audience, a spokesperson for the dictionary company said. Primarily designed for non-native speakers of English, it is also used by many native speakers.
Editor-in-Chief Michael Rundell notes that “language is changing at an incredible pace. As one of the only quality dictionaries to have gone wholly online, we can respond rapidly to changes in the language, wherever they come from.”
Macmillan’s online crowdsourced Open Dictionary, based on words suggested by members of the public is one of these sources. Macmillan’s expert lexicographers decided a number of these submissions should enter the main Macmillan Dictionary in this latest update: from chainwatching (to watch multiple episodes of a TV series in one go) and friending (connecting via social media), to social issues that are becoming more prevalent, such as zombie company or zero-hours contract (part of the aftermath of the global recession), or cyberbullying (the subject of many recent news stories).
Definitions of familiar words sometimes need updating too. For instance, this time, husband and wife get new definitions to take account of same-sex marriage.
With words falling in and out of fashion more quickly than ever, a unique Macmillan feature — of great value to language learners — is to identify a “core” vocabulary of 7,500 key words. These are the most frequent words in English, selected from the tens of thousands of words in the dictionary, and show what’s on trend and what’s now vintage vocabulary. Interestingly, many of these reflect social change, just as some brand new entries do. In the current update single parent, fossil fuel, and texting have joined the top 7,500, while bachelor, cassette, and personal stereo have been demoted as they become less frequently used.
Which of the new additions will stand the test of time? The Macmillan Dictionary team said it will continue to monitor the changing language and the next update is not far off.