The Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO) announced Wednesday that a set of new words has been added into the English lexicon, which includes many shortened forms such as srsly, vom, apols, selfie, phablet, BYOD, twerk and many others.
It may be just a coincidence but the word 'twerk' made infamous by Miley Cyrus's gyrations at the recent VMA 2013, has made it to the list of new words added to the Oxford English Dictionary lexicon. The ODO defines the verb as "dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance."
Similarly, numerous other words were added as a part of the dictionary's quarterly update. Most notable ones include the shortened forms of English words such as "srsly" for seriously, "apols" for apologies, "BYOD" for bring your own device, "FIL" for a person's father-in-law, "FOMO" for fear of missing out, "vom" for vomit and "phablet" for a smartphone with a screen bigger than a standard mobile phone and smaller than a tablet PC.
Katherine Connor Martin from Oxford Dictionaries, speaking about the origin of the word "twerk" and explaining the reason for its debut in English disctionary, said: "By last year, it had generated enough currency to be added to our new words watch list, and by this spring, we had enough evidence of usage frequency in a breadth of sources to consider adding it to our dictionaries of current English."
"The current public reaction to twerking is reminiscent in some ways of how the twisting craze was regarded in the early 1960s, when it was first popularised by Chubby Checker's song, The Twist," she added.
Other new words to debut into the English lexicon include "selfie" and "Omnishambles." The former has long been known to people who use social media while the latter means "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations." The word "selfie" is defined as a picture taken of one's own self using a camera and uploading to a social media site.
Every year, there are about 1,000 new words that make it to the Oxford Dictionaries Online with quarterly updates, Angus Stevenson, the editor of Oxford English Dictionaries said in a blog post.
