Saw this earlier today. I like how progressive the Oxford Dictionary really is. Words like “Retweet’, ‘woot’, andÂ ‘textspeak’ (which originate from the days of Instant Messenger, doubt anyone still remembers that). Only a few more words have been added other then the three above. Check out the article from BBC News:
They include retweet – to pass on a message on Twitter, and textspeak – a language that typically young people use to talk lyk dis.
Other words such as cyberbullying and sexting also make their debut.
“These additions are just carrying on the tradition of a dictionary that has always sought to be progressive,” said OED editor Angus Stevenson.
“Social networking sites have created a real language of the net,” he explained in a blog post.
“We’ve noticed that new words come into currency much more quickly as a result of the internet, as people see friends, or friends of friends using new words and copy them.”
He said that words like woot or w00t – an exclamation of triumph and success – can originate abroad but rapidly gain mass usage across the rest of the English-speaking world.