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Timmy

white swans need love too
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The Oxford university Press (USA) have announced their "Word of the Year" for 2009:

Oxford Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend

Some of the other new words were, I thought, more interesting; here are some of them (full list accessed via the above link).

death panel – a theoretical body that determines which patients deserve to live, when care is rationed

deleb – a dead celebrity

birther – a conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama's birth certificate



ps. The kiddies may need to be kept away from the comments section of the blog.
 


Crazy the impact celebrity culture and the internet is having on the expansion of the English language.

The success of the English language has always been its malleability. However I must say that I dislike the creation of new verbs like 'to defriend'. I guess it is specifically in the context of using Facebook but who is to say that Facebook will not be usurped by the next hot thing in social networking next year?
 
Well they say you learn something new every day - and today I learnt "intexticated"! Luv it, and will commence using it at every opportunity. That'll show the kids I'm sooo with it. Any smart alec comments from them and I'll threaten to unfriend 'em ....
 
DocK said:
...
"intexticated"!
...
Click to expand...

Having vehicle accident while texting.

Not very descriptive or intuitive attempt to include meaning in the word, but as long as everybody accepts the MEANING it'll be OK
 
I liked:

teabagger -a person, who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773)
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem the common definition is officially supported .
 
how do they come up with these words? and how do they get verified before they get qualified as a 'new' word
 
It's shocking that our great language is being contaminated by these fad words. But anyway, here are some i know and they're not in dictionary yet. I like them for what they are, they're kinda fun:

1. Chillax - for relaxing

2. Tanorexic - for people addicted to tanning salons
 
Here is a couple of new words with a following demonstration in context :

 
I'm not sure why I'm finding the above so funny, derty, but I can't stop laughing.

Not a new word, but this evening in a description about the recent operation separating the twins in Melbourne, the anaesthetist was referred to as the 'anaesthesiologist', and so another Americanism creeps into our language.
Perhaps anaesthesiologist is easier to pronounce than anaesthetist which is a word most people struggle to say for some reason.

While I'm having a rant about this, we see 'program' more often than 'programme' these days.
 

I laughed too, and could not understand why!

Anaesthesiologist is a word which makes me cringe. For some reason it reminds me of burglarize. "Police! Help! A burglar is burglarizing my house!"

Perhaps the next step is to call the person a burglarizer and we can say the burglarizer burglarizered the house.

Birther seems like such a ridiculously specific meaning for such a generic word.

Some words are much better left as slang and do not need to be included in the dictionary.

I see the English language becoming degraded, but the bigger concern is the loss of people's ability to use it properly (which largely feeds the degradation of the language itself).
 
An oldie, but a goodie - dates from the '80's when wheelie bins were first produced and delivered to residents to replace the older garbage bins.

 
Julia said:
anaesthetist ... anaesthesiologist
Click to expand...

Apparently anaesthesiologist is spelled anesthesiologist (i.e. drop the second 'a'). I wonder why the Americans adopted a different word? Is anaesthetist/anaesthesiologist/anesthesiologist Latin in origin, Greek? Is anaesthesiologist/anesthesiologist a more correct usage than anaesthetist? Interesting.
 

My friends Google and Wikipedia (if you believe it) tell me:

Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (see spelling differences; from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἲσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"),
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anesthesia

As to why the Americans adopted a different word - probably because it makes it easier for them to remember, ie cardiologist, neurologist, dermatologist etc As for dropping the second 'a' - I suspect most of them can't spell and therefore have adopted a more phonetic-based way of spelling to make things easier
 
Sdajii said:
...

For some reason it reminds me of burglarize. "Police! Help! A burglar is burglarizing my house!"

Perhaps the next step is to call the person a burglarizer and we can say the burglarizer burglarizered the house.

....
Click to expand...



Perhaps we could use this one: BURGLAROGIST

Suppose if somebody does it during most of their working life, they become good at it, could claim a degree if there was university brave enough to create one.

Many people are career criminals, why they cannot have a degree or two; after all we live in democratic country.
 
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