Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Dictionaries
The OED has put ♥ into the dictionary, along with such internet terms as OMG. At least that's what the headlines are screaming, and commentators world-wide have been praising or damning the dictionary editors' decision to go both graphic and digital.
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The latest update to the Oxford English Dictionary has attracted a flurry of media interest, though much of the coverage has been misleading or downright inaccurate. We take a look at some of the more reasoned reactions to the inclusion of such new items as OMG, LOL, and heart (as a transitive verb, not as a symbol).
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
When News Breaks, People Look it up in the Dictionary
The Internet may be the new newspaper, but it's also become the new dictionary, and the two are inextricably linked: when news breaks, people rush online to find out what it means, and whether it's a noun or a verb.
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Last week, President Barack Obama sent Americans running to the dictionary when he called Democrats opposing his compromise on tax cuts "sanctimonious."
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The New Oxford American Dictionary has released its third edition, and in the time-honored tradition of lexicographical publicity, a sampling of the dictionary's new words and phrases has been making the rounds. Some have griped that the list "reads like a list of Twitter trending topics" that is designed "to bait bloggers, who really are obsessed with the Interweb." Is the list too preoccupied with evanescent online culture? You be the judge!
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Blog Excerpts
"Refudiate" and other Top Words of the Summer
Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Look it Up! A Dictionary by Any Other Name...
News recently broke about words like chillax and vuvuzela getting added to the Oxford Dictionary of English. Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, noticed that many reports of the story couldn't get the name of the dictionary right. Here is her guide for the perplexed.
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