More new words
I’m observing St. Patrick’s Day in the traditional way this afternoon — drinking a few cases of Guinness with the roommates while the college basketballers do their thing on TV — and something about the situation reminded me that the latest Oxford English Dictionary quarterly additions were due out. Some of the more entertaining rookies:
- asswipe, n.
- cryptozoology, n. (the search for animals that are rumored to exist)
- fricking, adj. and adv.
- fuck-off, n.
- irritainment, n.
- shit-eater, n.
- tighty-whities, n.
I’ve written about this twice before, and I’ll certainly do it again, since the additions provide such a great window into our societal development.
The English major in the room noted that it seems to have been a downward trend.
Max wrote:
The only “downward trend” is how painfully and inexplicably a long time it took for the likes of “asswipe” and, my goodness,
“tighty-whities” to be formally recognized.
I, for one, along with my wedgied ass, can personally attest to the latter’s existence since at least the late 1980s.
Posted on 18-Mar-07 at 11:47 am | Permalink