Mouse potatoes joined couch potatoes, google officially became a verb and drama queens finally found the limelight on Thursday when they crossed over from popular culture to mainstream English language.
The mouse potato (who spends as much time on the computer as his/her 1990s counterpart did on the couch), the himbo (attractive, vacuous — and male) and the excessively emotional drama queen were among 100 new words added to the 2006 update of America’s best-selling dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.
The Internet search engine Google also found its way into the dictionary for the first time as a verb, meaning to find information quickly on the world wide web.
America’s first dictionary — Noah Webster’s A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language — was published 200 years ago and also introduced a crop of fresh words that have now become familiar.
Those “new” words in 1806 included slang, surf, psychology and, naturally, Americanize.
Himbos? Never heard of it.
yeah, I thought it was, per a Seinfeld episode, “mimbo”
Wouldn’t google sue any use of ‘to google’ just like Xerox does?
And the new words added to the French language are… None. The French “intellectuals” are too obssesed with keeping the language pure.
3. “pure” = “dying” Fortunately, English has no Academy to keep it “pure.” One wonders if that will continue if the ‘Official English’ crowd has their way in the US.
#3 The two main dictionaries of the French language (Larousse and Robert) add new words every year. The Academie is only a group of elitist hat no one listens too..
Fortunately, English has no Academy to keep it “pure.” One wonders if that will continue if the ‘Official English’ crowd has their way in the US.
Well true that English has no “official” academy deciding what is proper English, there are a number of lexiconists collaborating, separately, together, and unofficially to maintain what is proper. This uniformity keeps the language from splintering into regional dialects. So even though various accents around the English speaking world abound, the written word should always be the same. Even sounds are similar, excepting local twists.
So the next time you pick up a Websters or Oxford dictionary, you will find the words spelled the same.
The ‘Official English crowd’ has nothing to do with setting standards for the English language, but rather keeping other languages out. The main focus right now is on getting rid of voting ballots in other languages, which is set for renewal with the Voting Rights Act, eg dilute black voters’ votes with votes from illegal immigrants.
You like ole Santorium huh Eideard? lol
The ‘Official English crowd’ has nothing to do with setting standards for the English language, but rather keeping other languages out. The main focus right now is on getting rid of voting ballots in other languages, which is set for renewal with the Voting Rights Act, eg dilute black voters’ votes with votes from illegal immigrants.
Comment by AB CD — 7/9/2006 @ 3:17 pm
WTF are you babbling about ????? English standards have been set and agreed upon. Every English class teaches the same grammar and spelling, regardless of where on earth you are. Words from other languages are constantly becoming normal English. BTW, English is derived from French, German, Latin, and Greek, along with smatterings from a host of other tongues.
Heh. Hey, if we are going to ban non-English languages from official discourse, how do we define “English”? aren’t loan words from other languages just the camel’s nose in the tent? Shouldn’t “Spanglish” be outlawed as well? if we are going to enshrine English as our “official” language, don’t we need a body ala le Academe to set the standards?
Fortunately, we have a First Amendment which bans any governmental attempt to dictate what language (or variation thereof) people speak in.
How to go, joshua — you were the first to notice I chose Santorum for the “himbo” definition.
Every English class teaches the same grammar and spelling, regardless of where on earth you are.
Admittedly, everyone has fat finger syndrome at times and what gets written here in the comments isn’t graded. But given the horrific inability to spell (noone is NOT a word), use punctuation (do they even teach how to use apostrophes any more?) and even write a coherent sentence at times that we see in the comments on DU, I’d say English classes might as well be taught in French for all the good they seem to have done. I do have to say this particular post’s comments are unusually well written. Relatively speaking.
The new FireFox 2.0 beta releasing this week has an automatic spelling checker built in, so maybe things will improve for those using it.
The new FireFox 2.0 beta releasing this week has an automatic spelling checker built in, so maybe things will improve for those using it.
May bee, butt due knot git yore hoe’p.s. to hi.