Oxford adds "vuvuzela," "frenemy," "chill pill" to new edition of dictionary

August 20, 2010

The third edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English was published yesterday, and has been updated to include "tweetup," along with many modern words such as vuvuzela, which made a name for itself as the horn often heard during this summer’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa. More than 2,000 new words have been added to the dictionary, according to yesterday’s Telegraph.

The Internet and the financial crisis have had the greatest impact on current language spurring the addition of words like microblogging, tweetup, Paywall, netbook as well as toxic debt, deleveraging, quantitative easing and staycation. Experts and economists were previously the only ones who used many of these words, but they have now crept into everyday conversations.

National and global politics as well as climate have also influenced the changes in the new edition of the dictionary. Phrases including strategy, the fog of war, a surge (of troops) and catatrophizing as well as carbon capture and geoengineering appear in this iteration.

Other miscellaneous entries are: chill pill (a notional pill to make someone calm), bromance (a close but non-sexual relationship between two men) and frenemy (a person that one is friendly with despite a fundamental dislike).

According to the Telegraph, a spokesperson from publisher Oxford University press said that the dictionary, which was first published in 1998, is the first dictionary to be fully based on how language is really used — with words and senses derived from the latest research.

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