Oxford English Dictionary invites slang word entries

New Delhi, Monday, October 15, 2018: ? Oxford University Press launches the Oxford English Dictionary?s (OED) youth slang word appeal.

?Feminism is not equal to hating men. Get your fundas right?

8 August 2018

?Huh? It?s some arbit whatsapp forward?

24 Feb 2015

?This SpongeBob in Hindi is just ridic funny. Honestly :)?

4 Jan 2014

If you understand these Twitter entries, then you may be able to help the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) with our latest appeal. We want to hear about the unique words and expressions that children and young people use. If you don?t understand it then the OED can come to your rescue.

The words that many of us hear for the first time from younger people often have a bigger story to tell about varieties of English used by particular ethnic or cultural groups, and their influence on the language as a whole. The OED?s aim is to record all distinctive words that shape the language, old and new, formal and informal. Slang terms are always challenging for dictionary editors to track but young people?s language today can be particularly elusive?because the terms that are in vogue change so rapidly and newer ephemeral modes of communication (texting, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc.) make it difficult to monitor and record this kind of vocabulary. That?s why we are asking for your help in identifying the language used by children and teenagers today.

Even if the examples above leave you bewildered, you can still help us. Do your children, grandchildren, students, or teenage neighbours use words that are completely unfamiliar to you?or familiar words in very unfamiliar ways? Or perhaps you remember words or terms from your own childhood that are not yet recorded in the dictionary?the names of playground games, for example? We?d love to hear about those, too. Join the conversation on Twitter at #youthslangappeal or send your words to our website.

Danica Salazar, World English Editor at OUP, comments: ?Multilingual, multicultural, and technologically savvy, young people in India are changing the lexicon in ways that lexicographers find particularly innovative, but also elusive. By taking words from the many languages they speak, then taking them apart and putting them back together again, children and teenagers create what seems like a secret vocabulary full of imaginative new words and meanings that are distinctly Indian. The OED is reaching out to these young wordsmiths to help us record the slang words that they have invented.?



WHAT IS THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (OED)?
The OED is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over 855,000 words, senses, and compounds ? past and present ? from across the English-speaking world. As a historical dictionary, the OED is very different from those of current English, in which the focus is on present-day meanings. You\'ll still find these in the OED, but you\'ll also find the history of individual words, and of the language ? traced through over 3.3 million quotations, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. View OED FAQs here.



HOW DOES A WORD QUALIFY FOR INCLUSION IN THE OED?

The OED requires several independent examples of the word being used, and also evidence that the word has been in use for a reasonable amount of time. The exact time-span and number of examples may vary: for instance, one word may be included on the evidence of only a few examples, spread out over a long period of time, while another may gather momentum very quickly, resulting in a wide range of evidence in a shorter space of time. We also look for the word to reach a level of general currency where it is unselfconsciously used with the expectation of being understood: that is, we look for examples of uses of a word that are not immediately followed by an explanation of its meaning for the benefit of the reader. We have a large range of words under constant review, and as items are assessed for inclusion in the dictionary, words which have not yet accumulated enough evidence are kept on file, so that we can refer back to them if further evidence comes to light.

ABOUT OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford University Press, a department of the University of Oxford, furthers the University?s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. The world\'s largest and most international university press, Oxford University Press currently publishes more than 6,000 new publications per year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs some 7,000 people worldwide. It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing programme that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, children\'s books, materials for teaching English as a foreign language, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and journals.

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