The esteemed Oxford English Dictionary has updated its list of acceptable words, with more than 1,000 additions and revisions-including splendiferous, jagoff, moobs, and (ugh) “YOLO“.
Advertisement
Every summer, the esteemed linguistic authorities responsible for the Oxford English Dictionary’s upkeep inform the world of the new words they’ve made a decision to include in the next edition.
Gender-fluid describes someone who does not identify with a fixed male or female gender, while YOLO is a popular acronym for the phrase “you only live once”. Last year, the Oxford English Dictionary added cisgender and considered the gender-neutral title Mx.
You can fuhgeddaboudit, if you insist this phrase isn’t a real word.
Although students knew what “gender-fluid” meant, it proved a little more hard for those who are over 70. These are among some of the Singlish words that were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its quarterly update on Monday (Sept 12).
Roald Dahl at home with his wife, American actress Patricia Neal, and two of their five children, April 1964.
Those 11 words are widely used and understood by most of 29 over million multi-ethnic population in Malaysia.
Besides “splendiferous”, Dahl-inspired vocabulary in the new edition includes an updated entry for the word “gremlins“, the meddlesome imps that sabotaged airplanes in Dahl’s first children’s book in 1943, and “human bean” – a humorous adjustment or mispronunciation of human being.
Advertisement
The OED traces the historical development of the English language, describing the use of words in their many variations throughout the world.
