Think you’re being funky and ‘with it’ by using amazeballs, YOLO, and clickbait in your marketing material? Think again.
Once it has made its way into the dictionary, its coolness is already long gone.
The Oxford Dictionary has updated its listings to include a number of contemporary words and phrases; albeit at this stage, the phrase ‘side-boob’ is thankfully not yet in the hard copy.
The rather long list of colloquiums are new as at the August update of OxfordDictionaries.com – though its sister publication, the Oxford English Dictionary, takes a more conservative approach to its updates.
In its blog announcement, the online dictionary said the latest additions are a reflection of the traction of text and web expressions in modern language.
“There are plenty of informal terms in this update which often feature in online conversations,” the Oxford Dictionaries said.
These digital terminologies include internet specific lingo, like “livetweet”, describing real-time Twitter coverage, “Deep Web”, which refers to an area of the internet not easily accessible from common search engines, and “clickbait” – an eye catching web link.
Words added to the Oxford Dictionary:
- Acquihire: an act or instance of buying out a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff, rather than for the products or services it supplies.
- Amazeballs: extremely good or impressive; amazing.
- Baller:a person or device that makes or forms something into balls or: a player of a ball game, especially a talented basketball player or: a successful person, typically one who has a lavish or self-indulgent lifestyle.
- Binge-watch: watch multiple episodes of (a television program) in rapid succession, typically by means of DVDs or digital streaming.
- Bro hug: another term for man hug.
- Clickbait: Web content, especially that of a sensational or provocative nature, whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page.
- Cotch:spend time relaxing
- Douchebaggery: obnoxious or contemptible behaviour.
- Dox: search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the internet, typically with malicious intent
- Hot Diggity: used to express excitement or delight.
- Hot mess:a person or thing that is spectacularly unsuccessful or disordered.
- Humblebrag: an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud.
- ICYMI: in case you missed it (used in electronic communication to draw attention to something noteworthy.)
- Listicle: an article on the internet presented in the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list.
- Pongophobia: extreme dislike of beards.
- Side-boob: the side part of a woman’s breast, as exposed by a revealing item of clothing.
- Spit take: an act of suddenly spitting out liquid one is drinking in response to something funny or surprising (especially as a comic technique).
