C-Net ran a story last week about the 100 or so new words that Merriam-Webster have included in their 2008 edition. Peter Sokolowski, one of the dictionary's editors, said: "As soon as we see the word used without explanation or translation or gloss, we consider it a naturalized citizen of the English language."
Some of the technology-related words that made it in this year include pretexting (presenting yourself as someone else in order to gain access to information), fanboy (an unquestioning devotee of a particular technology brand, usually Apple) and the distinctly unpleasant webinar, which I won't even dignify with a definition. But bearing in mind Sokolowski's terrifyingly broad criteria for inclusion, which other words could have made it?
At the end of last year, Merriam-Webster ran a poll asking visitors to their site to vote for their word of 2007. They voted overwhelmingly for "woot" (or, as it probably should be written, w00t), an exclamation of joy or surprise that racks up nearly 13 million hits on Google. But despite this, and despite the inclusion of "woot" or "w00t" in Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary (which operates wiki-style and depends on user contributions), it hasn't been included in their print edition. By way of consolation, they offer us malware and netroots, the latter of which I actually had to look up. ("The grassroots political activists who communicate via the Internet especially by blogs", in case you wondered.)
So, as it stands, if you're baffled by the insular argot of internet slang, and even if you feel that it has been deployed "without explanation or translation or gloss", there'll be little point in rushing to consult your copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. For definitions of such colourful and widely-used phrases as "w00t", "pwned", "otoh" and "dilligaf", get yourself over to Wiktionary for a quick primer.
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