Bits Getting L33t Into The Oxford English Dictionary

Ok, so you've had your fun with this article now back to reviewing hardware please

 

As a snapshot of the use of language, I think this article should be preserved in print - so include it the magazine.

 

Yo dawg!
I can't wait to see the "*****'s dictonar" wich will contain:

*****, ambalamps, yo dawg, broda, sista, etc

Just out of curiosity, sometime ago, like two years, thare was agroup of people trying to get the schools to teach the "afro american" language.

Even black folks were against it.

 

I seriously hope your kidding..

 

WTF?

 

The vast majority of that is just a matter of pronunciation... no different to 'teaching Geordie'.

If it's genuine, widely used dialect, rather than pronunciation, then it should go in.

 

My current boss does (5 more weeks... can't wait!) and I hate him for it.

 

Is 1337 even relevant to the discussion any more? I haven't seen anyone using 1337speak in seriousness since the days of Quake 2; And even then the 'seriousness' of it was dubious.

 

H41 GU153, UR F4C3 W3N U R34L153 7H15 15 7H3 FU7UR3 0F L4NGU4G3.

Welcome to the beginning of the end.

 

This is how language works. Someone thinks up a word and uses it. Others like it and also use it, and before you know it everyone is using it and it makes it into the dictionary. This is how it has always been. Though I do think putting acronyms in is stretching it a bit. After all, those are First letters of words..not words in themselves.

Btw, does this mean I can put down leet in a game of scrabble now? That's just f*****g ridicules lol.

 

Acronyms? hmm...

'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.

'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.'

He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.

'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'

 

Well, they wouldn't be the first.

Sometimes acronyms become so popular that they enter the vernacular. Although SOS didn't actually mean anything when it originated, we all recognize the three capitalized letters for what they are, and in some cases we create a "backronym" to further define them. Other times, the acronyms become so widely adopted that their original meaning is largely lost, and the acronym becomes a new word by itself (scuba).

 

Or laser. Good point with SOS, so many people think it originally stood for something.

 

I hope that you're not quoting 1984 from memory.

 

No, you would look for a dictionary of colloquialisms.

It's a shame the OED has become such a joke. It's only good for providing the occasional news story about what stupid word has made it now.

 

I had to look up SOS.

Origin:
early 20th century: letters chosen as being easily transmitted and recognized in Morse code; by folk etymology an abbreviation of save our souls

Then I had to look up "Folk Etymology"

Then I returned to the "Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary"
Much better.

What's the dictionary to use for american english?
Frank and Wagnalls standart desk dictionary?

 

Has anybody actually said 'l33t' since 2000?

 

Too late..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416