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They’re among the 120 new words that gained entry onto the pages of the venerable Oxford English Dictionary in its annual additions, announced March 15.
The editors went techno-crazy this year, also baptizing “virtualize,” “undelete,” “wiki,” “Infobahn” and “technopreneur.”
New Age exercise movements got their due as well, with “Bikram yoga,” “Shaolin” and “Tae-Bo.”
And what’s a dictionary without insults and crude phrases? “Zipperhead,” “bimbette” and other words unfit for print here joined the list.
But does English really need more words? And shouldn’t some be eliminated when others are added? For insight, we turned to foreign exchange students at Onalaska High School, for whom English is a new daily adventure. For their favorites and for the words these English-speakers think should be banished, click here.
To check out some of the new words recognized by the high priests and priestesses of the English language, click here.
