Whether your spellchecker like it or not,“astroturfing”is formally a word . At least it is harmonize to the lexicographer behind Dictionary.com , one of the Web ’s most pop on-line ( and fluid ) resource for all thing word - related . The same goes for “ agender , ” “ crash prime , ” “ microaggression , ” and “ slacktivism . ”
On Wednesday , the internet site unveiled itslatest update , which added or modified more than 1,000 words to its already enormous database of more than 1.2 million searchable terms . To learn how a word becomes “ a word , ” we speak with Rebekah Otto , Dictionary.com ’s Director of Content , who shared some secrets of the mental lexicon trade .
1. LANGUAGE IS CONSTANTLY EVOLVING.
“ Our squad of lexicographers finds potential new terms from an regalia of sources : understand wide , looking at words our user are look for with no results , and scan changes over time in our principal sum of contemporary linguistic communication role , ” Otto explains . “ We value this monumental lean of full term against our corpus of more than 19 billion words , which is a collection of reservoir , from literature to newsworthiness articles to boob tube and interview transcripts , balanced to reflect actual usage of language . This list is constantly sum to and culled , so it ’s an ongoing process . Just because a new condition or coinage is not added in an update does not mean it will not be include in the time to come . ”
2. TECHNOLOGY IS A LANGUAGE UNTO ITSELF.
Dictionary.com ’s in style update go steady a trend toward engineering - related terms , but Otto imprecate that “ We do not intentionally focus on the applied science industry in our updates , at the disbursement of other changes in the linguistic communication . That said , we are more aware of change in engineering - related words because we ’re base in the Bay Area and are surrounded by that finish . For deterrent example , last year , when our graphic designer were working on mocks for our Android Wear app , they observe running across the word ‘ glanceable ’ in their research and suggested it to one of our lexicographers who add the word to our list to be think . Even outside of the Bay Area , the voice communication of our devices and how we interact with them go along to evolve , and we will always supervise those shift . ” ( cause in point : the recent addition of “ smartwatch . ” )
3. THE CULTURE REFLECTS THE CONVERSATION.
“ We point to ruminate the cultural conversation , not to drive it , ” says Otto . “ We have noticed our users progressively looking for tidings like ‘ cisgender ’ ( which was tote up last year ) . Just a few week ago , following Bruce Jenner ’s audience with Diane Sawyer , the word ‘ transsexual ’ sheer in our lookups . Additionally public tidings events like the Silk Road trial drive increased interest and awareness in terms like ‘ bass web ’ and ‘ dark web . ’ ”
4. THERE’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN “SLANG” AND “INFORMAL LANGUAGE.”
What ’s the line that delineates a idiom like “ brogrammer ” between being slang and an official word ? “ Slang is defined as ‘ very informal custom . ’ This typically argue that these terminus will not be set up in published books or other schematic , emended speech . Of naturally , words move from slang to more widely take over usance in English . In these case we might change a label from ‘ Slang ’ to ‘ intimate ’ or get rid of the label altogether . ”
5. UPDATING AN ALREADY EXISTING WORD IS ONE OF A LEXICOGRAPHER’S HARDEST JOBS.
There ’s more to Dictionary.com ’s quarterly updates than the addition of new words ; existing words are updated , too . And Otto admits that “ this is one of the trickiest role of updating the dictionary . It is relatively straightforward to identify and set new coinages like ‘ brogrammer , ’ but for fresh smoke of existing words we have to look closely at a wide-eyed range of examples from our corpus to see how frequently and widely a new sense is being used . Some new senses — like ‘ pill ’ and ‘ coil , ’ which were add up years ago — quick reach a point of ethnical saturation that the evidence is apparent . Typically today if someone allege ‘ tablet , ’ they mean their iPad , Kindle Fire , or Google Nexus — not a digs of paper or a piece of stone . "
