Twerk and Selfie are now Srsly Official English Words According to the Oxford Dictionary
Scrabble freaks will "squee" with the list of new words added this month in the Oxford Dictionary.
There are 43 new words added to the English vocabulary and it's all thanks to Oxford Dictionary's blog post Wednesday. The newly-added words this month consist of highly familiar terms that everyone has probably used once or twice in the past few months.
Although there were quite a few terms which debuted last year, there are also newcomers in this month's list of new English words.
The terms "selfie" and "phablet", for example, have already become a frequently used term by some but only made it to the list this month.
The word "selfie" is defined as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website." According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term originated in the 21st century and is a combination of "self" and "ie."
The word "phablet" is also a combination of the words "phone" and "tablet," which means "a smartphone having a screen which is intermediate in size between that of a typical smartphone and a tablet computer." Interestingly, Oxford Dictionary categorizes "phablet" under nouns and trademark -- with the latter referring to Samsung perhaps?
This week's favorite and trending term, "twerk" has also made it on the list. Although Oxford Dictionary did not touch on the term on the blog post, the inclusion is very timely -- especially with Miley Cyrus' twerking performance over the weekend.
"Twerk" is defined as "dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance." It is said to have originated in the 1990's with Oxford assuming that that it is probably an alteration of "work." True enough, twerking does involve a lot of work!
Other familiar terms that are now officially words are srsly (short for seriously), BYOD (bring your own device), tl;dr (too long, didn't read), derp (meaningless or stupid), jorts (denim shorts) and much more. To view the complete list of Oxford Dictionary's new words for August, click HERE.