Now, I know that English is a constantly evolving language, which is great. While I may hate Americans for spelling Colour Color, and Favourite Favorite, I can get over it. The Germans probably thought the same thing about the English a few hundred years back (and the Romans, and the Welsh and the Greeks and pretty much every culture) because we stole adapted their languages into our own.
However, there are a number of words that have been added to the English dictionary that are, well, abominations.
To begin with:
Muggle- n. In the fiction of J.K. Rowling: a person who possesses no magical powers. Hence in allusive and extended uses: a person who lacks a particular skill or skills, or who is regarded as inferior in some way.
The Oxford Dictionary says this was added due to being used so much. But who uses it out of a Harry Potter context? I have never ever heard anyone being referred to as a muggle. But don't worry, they made the definition so in a round about sort of way it could possibly, maybe, be used to refer to someone of less skill.
Grrrl- a young woman perceived as strong or aggressive, esp. in her attitude to men or in her expression of feminine independence and sexuality. A member of a movement expressing feminist resistance to male domination in society and esp. to the abuse and harassment of women.
Okay, great, a word to describe a young feminist. That sounds pretty good, wait, what does it sound like? How exactly do you pronounce “Grrrl”. I think this must be the first word in the dictionary without a vowel or “Y” as a substitute. What are they going to teach in primary schools now? Every word has a vowel or a Y, or three “R”s are in row. The website Cracked.com (who did an article pretty much just like this) put it like this:
“Call us tools of the male chauvinist patriarchy, but even the wacky sound effects from the 60s Batman TV show had vowels in them. That's right; this is less of a word than ZWWAP!”
Lookism- n. Prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance.
The idea behind this word isn’t that bad, but seriously, “Look”ism? Surely as a race we can come up with a better word than that. This just goes to show you can pick any word, stick ism on the end and BAM! a new and kinky word is born. Why not have Smartism (discrimination based on intelligence), Bookism (discrimination based on how books you read), Strengthism (discrimination on how strong you are.)
Bouncebackability- n. The ability to recover from near-defeat in a competition; the ability to recover from a setback.
Hey, they just put together Bounce Back and Ability into the one word, (forming a new and kinky one). And wait a second, “The ability to recover from near-defeat in a competition; the ability to recover from a setback.” Don’t they already have a word for that? Resilience? But hey, why say resilience when you can say the nice simple Bouncebackability. The comedian Adam Hills did an entire segment on this word.
Meatspace- The real world, opposed to the virtual world.
Great, so now we need a word to distinguish between reality and LOLcats. Great. And hey, way to go calling all of us pieces of meat. Nice one!
Unfriend- Remove someone as a friend on a social networking website
This is the most recent addition to the Dictionary, and was The Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year. Word of the Year!? Once again, no-one is going to use this out of context. Just like muggle was only going to be used about Harry Potter, this will only be used on MySpace and Facebook. And if it does spill out into the real world… [shudders]. A representative of the Oxford dictionary said it is UNfriend, not DEfriend, it’s like undo. So next time someone annoys you, simply undo your relationship and all is good!
This was made word of the year? Surely there are better words out there, lets look at the runners up:
Tramp stamp - A tattoo on the lower back, usually on a woman
Ah, classy.
Intexticated - Distracted by texting while driving
Pun! Everyone LOVES puns right.
Netbook - A very small, very portable laptop
Whoa! This one actually DOES make some sort of sense.
Deleb - A dead celebrity
Man, I’m not even going to start on this one…
Funemployed - Taking advantage of newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests
See! Everyone DOES love puns!
Birther - A conspiracy theorist who challenges President Obama's US birth certificate
As someone who lives outside of the U.S. I know very little about this conspiracy, but this is another example of the context thing. In ten years time when Obama’s reign of terror/peace and prosperity is over WHO is going to be able to use this word?
Man. That was much longer than I thought it would be. I suppose I have a lot of anger pent up inside of me. But before I go, a short story set in the not-so-distant future:
she thought she was like all great n al an such a grrrl but she was totally a muggle. she was famous but that like doesn’t mean she go round being such a ho. she like is totally a hore 2. u should see her tramp stamp. But she got wat was coming, that teachs the deleb 4 driving while intexticated. but hey, that was all in meatspace and who cares about that?
