Some “new words” are conversation-starters themselves
I am continuing this week with just a few more of the 455 new words added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. You needn’t worry... I won’t mention the whole lot of 455! But before I review the words, I asked the folks at Merriam-Webster: How does Merriam-Webster decide what words to include in the Dictionary? And they said: This is one of the questions Merriam-Webster editors are most often asked. The answer is simple: usage. To decide which words to include in the dictionary and to determine what they mean, Merriam-Webster editors study the language as it’s used. They carefully monitor which words people use most often and how they use them. So keep that in mind as we take a look at some of the words that you may or may not have heard in conversation.
Another question the dictionary-brains get asked a lot is: How long does it take for a new word to get into the dictionary? Some words take years and even decades to make it onto a dictionary page. But the all-time speed record goes to “COVID-19.” That term had never been heard by anyone just 35 days before it was entered into the dictionary.
And one more thing before I introduce some new words. It appears that Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” (WOTY) for 2021 is.... (drum roll, please)..... “vaccine.” I’m shocked! The word “pandemic” was the 2020 WOTY. It will be an awesome year when the WOTY is completely unrelated to any pandemic!
Okay, so first new word I want to introduce to you (perhaps you’ve heard it; I had not!) is “whataboutism,” defined as : the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse.
In the field of tech and science, there are a number of new words, such as “bit rot” : the tendency for digital information to degrade or become unusable over time; data degradation; “zero-day” : of, relating to, or being a vulnerability, as in a computer or computer system, that is discovered and exploited, as by cybercriminals, before it is known to or addressed by the maker or vendor; “teraflop” : a unit of measure for the calculating speed of a computer equal to one trillion (tera-means ‘trillion,’ and flop stands for ‘floating-point operation); and “oobleck” : a mixture of corn starch and water that behaves like a liquid when at rest and like a solid when pressure is applied. Just for fun... oobleck gets its name from the title of a story by Dr. Seuss, “Bartholomew and the Oobleck,” and is a favorite component in kids’ science experiments.
Many new food terms come from the cuisines of cultures that speak a language other than English, but this batch of new words also features a helping of all-American regionalism, along with new ways of cooking and organizing food preparation. Let’s start with horchata : a cold sweetened beverage made from ground rice or almonds and usually flavorings such as cinnamon or vanilla; “goetta” : meat, such as pork, mixed with oats, onions and spices and fried in the form of a patty; and “ghost kitchen” : a commercial cooking facility used for the preparation of food consumed off the premises; also called a cloud kitchen or dark kitchen.
In the world of medicine, newly-added is “fourth trimester” : the first three months of an infant’s life; and “halotherapy” : the therapeutic use of salt usually by inhalation of an aerosol composed chiefly of fine salt particles and circulated in an enclosed area, halotherapy is used as a treatment for asthma, bronchitis and allergies.
Toss in this new word from pop culture, “otaku” : a person having an intense or obsessive interest especially in the fields of anime and manga; often used before another noun. Well, then I had to look up “anime” : a style of animation originating in Japan, and “manga” : Japanese comic books and graphic novels.
Other notable terms added include “doorbell camera,” which I think we all know about; plus “blank check company” : a corporate shell set up by investors for the sole purpose of raising money through an initial public offering to acquire another business yet to be determined.
Other than doorbell camera, I can’t see any of the above new words entering my vocabulary anytime soon. However, some cold night this winter, I may have to mix up a batch of oobleck!
