perhaps not so new, but no-one cares about research

It is perhaps likely it comes originally from the Greek Mu or Mju, often used with Alpha and Omega, meaning the beginning and end, making Mu mean the middle or neither the one or the other.

Seems to fit better with how languages evolves, but i would not go so far as to correct someone who cannot see past their TV at the er thousands of years of history and creativety we had before the Simpsons.

Meh!

\gets coat

Pftt!

And?

Stupid

It's just a publicity stunt for the new edition.

They stick a bonkers word in so that dumbass journos with nothing better to write and an inability to find an actual story having spent all weekend sat in front of the telly getting plastered, devoid of the creativity required to fake or make a story will reproduce as if it's useful copy.

However, in reality all they have done is slap together a half arsed advert for a dictionary at the bidding of some smelly tenured word geek in Oxford.

Well...

Meh is better than Whatever (whateva) , At least it a new word actually conveying a fairly complex meaning not just a recycled word.

Could have been worse...

...could have been "LULZ".

neologism chasing

I've never understood the urge of dictionary makers to add the latest slang or catchphrases. It dates so quickly and, really, does anyone need to look up catchphrases and the cute-word-du-jour? They are common knowledge. Dictionaries are trying hard to be sexy, but I'd rather they give a word, say, 50 years to prove itself. Slang dictionaries are different creatures, and the etymology and history of use of slang is interesting of itself. But a slang dictionary records words and phrases that are ephemeral. Let's not confuse them with real dictionaries.

I do so wish

That I could think of a comment to make that wasn't, "Meh", but I can't.

Meh.

Almost, but meh

I heard this on Radio 2, but apparently it's pronounced "may" as opposed to the phonetic "meh". I'd complain about this, but meh.

Italian

Haven't Italians been using just about the same word with this meaning for ages?

What's with this Simpsons rubbish?

Is this what passes for popular culture these days?

Meh is Melchett's verbal diarrhea in Blackadder.

(untitled)

?!? I swear they must do it just to generate controversy.

How can it be in common use when I've never heard it uttered?

Right let's go for it, everyone sprinkle their conversations with the word "drifgom" all year. See if we can get it in.

Dictionaries have always done this

I had one years ago that was so old it had a definiton for 'Blackshirt' for example, which isn't a word you'd find in most dictionaries today (indeed google shows it only on wikipedia as a historical reference).

Agree that cromulent should be in there as well (someone will probably claim that has latin roots as well).

General Melchett?

Meh, Darling....

Much like Gordon Brown come to think of it.

@Ken Hagan

I always thought Melchett's was 'Meah' with the ea pronounced as a kind extended bleat. A somewhat extended meaning, to Meh - with a pleasing added hint of insanity.

It's a perfectly cromulent word

So what will they put in the philology section. You know, where the dictionary says that such-and-such a word came from old Norse and was used by Conan-Doyle and Bronte ?

I guess they will just have to say that the dictionary publishers just saw it in a funny cartoon once.

Good work chaps, carry on.

Used to be impressed

I used to be quite impressed by the concept of "living language" as opposed to a dead one. I always thought that a living language was a wonderful thing.

Until I got an Internet connection.

At that point I realized that the wonderful changing property of a living language is simply due to the overwhelming numbers of the uneducated masses that mangle parts of it so consistently that it becomes a new part of the language.

Like astronauts drinking their own piss, it really erases the glory from the notion.

mef

Just mef

Italian

Si pensi di "Beh"? Lots of good words have come from Italian - bimbo, tonto, gonzo, ghetto. But not manana, or meh methinks.

cromulent

I'd like to see the definition of that one...

cromulent: respectable, spurious

Eh?

Well I for one have never heard of this word before?

Am I the only one?

@skelband

So there's a word you've not heard. Meh.

dictionaries...

...are descriptive, not prescriptive. So long as they document where they got the usage from, and date its first known use, then they're doing what they were meant to do.

If you want historical usage, then get a historical usage dictionary. Dictionaries of contemporary language need to keep up with what is actually contemporary. "meh" seems to fit that definition.