17 Jan Is it time to add Jersey Shore lingo to the dictionary?
These days it seems like you need to have a bumpit to create new words. Sarah Palin might refudiate that remark but I think Snooki and her guidos feel it’s high time to get some Jersey Shore lingo into the Oxford English Dictionary. Personally, I told someone I had spent considerable time catharterizing this weekend – not to be confused with being catheterized or jazzercizing – after getting dumped unceremoniously by a friend. (Note to readers – at this point I do not have a bumpit)
Snooki has a future as an English teacher
It made me wonder how words evolved in the first place. How did certain words become accepted into normal use and eventually accepted in the main dictionaries we all use? Like humongous. Or ginormous, or a zillion. For example, Humongous is in the Random House Dictionary as
Origin:
1965–70, Americanism ; expressive coinage, perh. reflecting huge and monstrous, with stress pattern of tremendous
Who knew?
According to Merriam-Webster, most words get entered into the dictionary because of usage, not because of some proper derivation of an old Latin word or something. In fact, words like chillax, defriend, frenemy and LBD all made it in this year no small thanks in part to US Magazine I’m thinking. (For more words new in 2010 check out this post on Tressugar.com)
So that means, I could coin a phrase here and maybe if you guys used it enough we could get it in the dictionary. Any ideas??