Oxford Dictionary Adds 35 New Words, But Using Them Coherently Will Not Be Easy

Culture

There are 35 new words in the Oxford Dictionary.  You'll probably want to open that link for definitions. In this article, I'll try to use and bold all 35 new words without turning seven shades of locavore vomit. Check that, frankenfood vomit. It sounds nastier.

In the first season of Californication, fictitious literary trainwreck Hank Moody waxed with droolworthy syntax about screenagers creating a textspeak full of "OMGs" and "LMFAOs" while sexting sexual noobs that will most likely unfriend each other the moment one sees a muffin-top peek over the jeggings of the other. Enjoy this video clip as an introduction to my forthcoming complaints.

Totes, Hank.

Truth be told, I'm not a hater (except of guyliner on non-80s rock stars), so chillax. I do believe that language, like all things, needs to constantly upcycle to prevent our societal transformation to a collective illiterati. I just don't think officially inducting a poor man's onomatopoeia like "woot" or a destitute man's "whatever" like "whatevs" into the linguistic hall of fame is crunk (alright, I obvs reached with that one).

Give cheap slang an inch and it will take a mile from wealthy diction. I'm pretty sure that's what that grrrl Ayn Rand was talking about in Atlas Shrugged. Every time a "bling" becomes audible, an "exorbitant" loses its wings. I'll never stop dreaming of that la-la land of words where "obstreperous" dances off Dostoyevsky's pen while "mankini" and "mini-me" are beaten like some kind of racially insensitive comment that allows me to use "po-po" in this sentence.

If you think I'm biased, there's a truthiness to that. I've always had a bromance with the originators of old-school English (Noah Webster was a pimp!), and I've always believed that the Twitterati were nothing but infomaniac muggles in the world of alphabetic magic. So sue me for my prejudice, but try to do it in a purple state so I have the best chance of a balanced jury.

D'oh! 34 of 35!? Seriously!? How could I not squeeze "whovian" into that mess!?