Sound Off: F-Bomb Makes Dictionary Debut, But Should It?
Each year Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary makes words official by adding them for publication in the 114-year-old dictionary. What words do you think should be included in the next edition? Tell us in the comments section below.
An aha moment: The first f-bomb was dropped in 1998.
Aha moment. F-bomb. Gastropub. Sexting. Man cave. Used any of those words lately?
What words would you add? Tell us in the comments section below.
Each year the dictonary's publishers sift through tons of catch phrases, new lingo and slang words to come up with a list of the 100 newest words showing how the English language has evolved. But each entry has to include three basic components before it can be made official:
- The word itself.
- An example of the word used in context.
- Bibliographic information about the source from which the word and example were taken.
See the full list of words added this year.
Carolyn Farr Smith
1:05 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
First person to use all of the new additions correctly in a sentence wins a piece of Patch swag!
Lindsay Street
1:34 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
A 100-word sentence is a tall order!
How about just these: aha moment, bucket list, energy drink, f-bomb, gastropub, life coach, man cave, obesogenic, and sexting? (randomly grabbed from another news site)
While in my man cave, drinking an obesogenic energy drink and sexting with my life coach, I had an aha moment — dropping an f-bomb as I gasped — about my bucket list and made a reservation at the nearest gastropub.
Jonathan Allen
1:45 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Still a huge fan of truthiness (thank you Stephen Colbert — Charleston born and bred).
Time for a CSB moment if you'll all indulge me:
A few years back in a feature article for another publication about the ridiculous amounts of money spent on weddings I included a phrase I hoped would catch on, disappointingly I've never seen anyone else use it since. I thought at the time, and still feel today that we should all beware the matrimony-industrial complex (obviously a paraphrasing of something Ike said). I mean seriously why does the average wedding now cost upwards of $10,000? Simply insane if you ask me, but I am a guy and was not trained by our culture to fantasize about my perfect princess wedding day since birth.
Carolyn Farr Smith
2:01 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Lindsay, I love it! I knew you would play along!
Lindsay Street
5:01 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 2012
It can't be because I'm a huge nerd or anything!
And here's another one from the sampling by MW, with lots more words (15):
aha moment
bucket list
cloud computing
copernicium
earworm
energy drink
f-bomb
game changer
gassed
gastropub
man cave
mash-up
sexting
systemic risk
underwater
Taking a systemic risk that my bucket list wasn't underwater and listening to my ear-worm, mash-up tune of copernicium and sexting on my cloud computing music storage, I left the man cave for the gastropub looking for a game changer or at least an energy drink but I was too gassed for an aha moment, so I had an f-bomb moment.
Whew, that's tough. Probably doesn't count since I adjective'd a noun (and there I verbed a noun lol). Someone want to randomly sample 25?
Elizabeth Coleman
8:41 am on Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Where's meme?
Carolyn Farr Smith
10:26 am on Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Elizabeth, that's a good one! Maybe it will top next year's list.