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Monday, July 7, 2008

Welcome Our New Friends

posted by on July 7 at 12:47 PM

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary has unveiled their new edition, which features 100 new words. I know this is just a stupid publicity stunt, but I always fall for it. Some new additions to the official Merriam-Webster lexicon include:

Pescatarian, fanboy, edamame, mondegreen, infinity pool, dirty bomb, subprime, wing nut, mental health day, and air quotes.

I wish that infinity pool didn’t mean what the Merriam-Webster folks say it means:

an outdoor pool with one lower edge that allows water to gush over making it look like it flows into the horizon.

I wish that the above definition applied to the word mondegreen. To me, an infinity pool sounds like a beautiful trap, or a catch-22, or something along those lines.

RSS icon Comments

1

You've never seen an inifity pool? They are the shizzzz.

Posted by Original Monique | July 7, 2008 12:57 PM
2

Mondegreen is a terrible new word -- I can't believe anyone actually uses it, other than someone overly pleased with their own cleverness.

Posted by MvB | July 7, 2008 1:00 PM
3

Give it some time. The odds are fair that infinity pool will fall into disuse and be tossed upon the scrap heap of neologisms ready for recycling.

Posted by umvue | July 7, 2008 1:03 PM
4

As a practicing pescatarian, glad to see representation in Webster's at long last. Gotta go now, I hear a fish taco calling me...

Posted by Jeff Stevens | July 7, 2008 1:18 PM
5

"Wing nut" is two words? Bullshit.

Posted by keshmeshi | July 7, 2008 1:22 PM
6

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure my friend invented the word "pescatarian" at Bandoleone on Eastlake, 5 years ago.

Posted by skweetis | July 7, 2008 1:30 PM
7

If they can be used in Scrabble, I'm all for it. Isn't that what the dictionary is for, mercilessly defeating your Scrabble opponant?

Posted by howScrabulous | July 7, 2008 1:34 PM
8

Is there a list of the words that were dropped?

Posted by elenchos | July 7, 2008 1:41 PM
9

#7 Don't count on it. The Scrabble dictionary is very slow to update.

I am disappointed that "truthiness" or "wikiality" were not included in the new list.

Posted by elswinger | July 7, 2008 2:01 PM
10

Everyone knows it's fanboi, not fanboy.

They are so last century ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | July 7, 2008 2:48 PM

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