March 25, 2011

084: WTF

The fact that OMG and LOL were added to the Oxford English Dictionary was news today, and a part of my soul dies every time I see the headline.  Also new is the heart symbol (♥), which isn't a word at all.  In which part of the dictionary do you look for ♥?  Between this and the increasingly frequent use of "gooder" in TV commercials, can the death of the English language be far away?  Woe!

Now a real word.

3 comments:

  1. According to this article, the "<3" thing was the result of mis-reporting: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2011/03/25/how-did-muffin-top-lol-and-omg-get-into-the-oxford-english-dictionary.aspx

    Apparently what's actually been added is the word "heart" as a verb, which in some ways is almost worse. Alas.

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  2. Also, this: "Usage frequency can be tricky to quantify, especially for acronyms like OMG and LOL, which matured primarily over the Internet before moving into verbal speech." The fact that people use these verbally at all is physically painful to me. Especially in the case of LOL -- YOU'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO LAUGH!

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  3. @mlle-madeleine All I can do at this point is just heave the world's biggest sigh and complain about the kids today. SIGH.

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