Redefining the dictionary

Handles, knobs and buttons

How British and American Spelling Parted Ways

These days, when we want to know how to spell a word, we have an accepted authority to look to: the dictionary. But that wasn’t always the case. Here's how Brits and Americans came to look to two different authorities. Produced for Mental Floss.

Geek vs Nerd

image credits: Cork English Teacher

2012 New Words

image credits: Keep Calm O'Matic App

Every year, Oxford Dictionaries are updated with some of the following: new words and senses, special features on language change, revised encyclopedic entries and improved functionality. Here are the main additions in 2012 and the corresponding month!

November

November’s update sees words from the worlds of technology, social culture, and finance debuting on Oxford Dictionaries Online.

Social terms recognized include bezzie, boyf, deets, First World problem, and stressy whilst technology brings us chatbot, forumite, Godwin’s law, and the recently launched LTE and 4G mobile networks. The continuing impact of the financial world can be seen in the addition of debt trap, payday loan, and payday lender.

August

The August quarterly update includes the addition of a number of terms inspired by contemporary culture, including ridic, group hug, vote (someone or something) off the island, and date night.

The world of technology also remains a major influence on the English language, with innovative advances reflected in new entries including ethical hacker, 3D printing, and e-learning. Social media also continues to shape language evolution: tweeps, video chat,lifecasting, and hat tip are among the latest words to make their Oxford Dictionaries debut, while acronyms regularly used online (from lulz to DW and UX) have also been recognized.

Superfly (stylish), boo (boyfriend), and skookum house (prison) are just some of the 1,000 new synonyms added to Oxford Dictionaries Pro in the August 2012 update, with the addition of the third edition of the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus. 

Here, you can read David Foster Wallace's reflection on the term 'all of' in the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus.

July

French, German, Italian, and Spanish vocabulary was added – from the everyday to the language of computing and technology, health and lifestyle. Look up access and digital in English, mieux and bibliothèque in French, die Servolenkung and der Doppelklick in German, bisettimanale and ambiente in Italian, or caminar and reciclado in Spanish.

May

A wide variety of words has been added, from aptonym to whatevs. Whether you are a sports fan who hopes to one day win the scudetto, or a fashionista debating whether to buy a onesie or a bandage dress,  you'll find something to interest you.

Words from the world of finance and banking (Robin Hood tax, debt ceiling, sovereign debt), computing (ransomware, geodata), and the environment (green technology, eco-driving, water footprint) have been added, too.

February

Calling all fashionistas – new words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online include boy shorts, shootie, and hobo bag. Gaming also plays a big role in the latest update, with gamification, ludology, and social gaming all featuring. Or perhaps you prefer to step away from the computer screen and indulge in some LARPing?

Learn more about the new words, from cyberchondriac to scratchiti, on the OxfordWords blog.

In Oxford Dictionaries (slightly abridged)

eGlossary

The eGlossary is part of the Moving into English series by Harcourt School Publishers.

It is an important piece of instructional material especially for beginners who need to learn the most important words at their own level. You can choose the level (from 1st to 5th grade) and then you choose a letter to start your search. Finally, you see a picture with the meaning and two sentences to clarify the comprehension. 

You get the meaning, the phonetics and the word in context, from basic vocabulary to more difficult one. If you are a teacher this is a good resource to explore your students' autonomy inside and outside te classroom.

Wordnik

Back to tools that may be useful both for teachers and students! Wordnik is an outstanding example of that... It is more than a dictionary because it brings not only the definitions you want to see, but also examples from social networks like Twitter. When you type a word you get as a result photographs from Flickr and the statistics and ocurrences of the word besides its pronunciation. Suitable for understanding the use of new words around the cyberworld. It defines itself as "the most comprehensive dictionary in the known universe".