Words are fluid. During my time at Fredonia as an English major and as Copy Editor for The Leader I’ve gained a new appreciation for words and their ability to be manipulated for specific purposes. This past semester, especially while studying Shakespeare — who invented over 1,700 words — I started pondering how a word comes into existence.
The English language, specifically what is known as “Standard American English,” has a huge variety of slang which changes from year to year. While phrases such as “zonk” (meaning to defeat soundly or knock out) and “doggery” (meaning disreputable liquor store or bar) aren’t recognizable to most college students today, terms such as “rad” and “gnarly” have endured for decades. While longevity is not necessarily dependent on inclusion in dictionaries, all these words were coined by an individual in history.
The 21st century brought all sorts of important advances in technology: smartphones, music and video streaming, and, of course Urban Dictionary. Urban Dictionary contains established words — although often with alternate meanings, some of which may be graphic — and recently coined phrases used only among select groups of people, mainly teenagers and young adults. Although in no way scholarly, this database is the first documented record of many new words, which enables the meaning of the word to spread to a larger population.
As a new meaning of an existing word — or new phrase altogether — becomes popular, it eventually enters the realm of common knowledge. This informal induction into the language is the first step in becoming an “official” word. Once slang or informal words become widely-accepted it is time for them to become official. The amount of words is so massive, however, that there must be some selection.
Dictionary editors spend an hour or two each day reading texts from a variety of disciplines, sources and styles of writing. When reading, they take note of any new words, alternate spelling or meanings, or different contexts. These instances are documented in citation files, which include the word, a contextual example and the source. When updating the dictionary, small sections of these citations are compared with the current listings. If a word has many citations over a long period of time and a variety of disciplines, it is added to the next edition of the dictionary.
As anyone who has ever read “Frindle” by Andrew Clements knows, a single person can have a huge impact on language. Words are the basis of most human communication, which makes them vitally important. It’s strange to think about how fragile and malleable our language is, particularly the slang of us college students. In twenty years will the words — and I use that term loosely — “fleek,” “thirsty,” “turnt,” “basic” and “bae” still have the same connotations as they do now?