back to article Oxford adds woot! to dictionary

Today marks the launch of the centenary edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, first compiled by the Fowler brothers in 1911: an event traditionally marked by a press release including words added for the first time. This year's new entries include: woot, retweet, cyberbullying, denialist, gastric band and the …

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  1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    woot

    Why do I suddenly feel like I am playing Counter Strike, only time I ever used such words!

  2. NomNomNom

    wtf

    So I can't use the phrase "jet of water" anymore? are you kidding me? Thats a common phrase. which idiot voted for these new laws and what gives them the right to change the dictionary overnight without warning?

    1. RichyS
      Go

      Carry on

      I think under the old rules, 'jet of water' would be considered a tautology -- on the basis that a jet by definition is of water. However, as the term jet is now less specific (type of engine, plane, ex-Gladiator, whatever), it's now fair enough to use the term 'jet of water'.

      You can put down your green Biro now....

      1. Rob Dobs
        Boffin

        Agree with Richy

        You can still use "Jet of Water", just now if you say "I saw a Jet" the ONLY reasonable conclusion someone would envision would be a jet airplane* no would assume a jet of water, and CERTAINLY no one would assume a ex-Gladiator... though sadly I am now reminded of this fact that I had happily until now forgotten.

        (*Maybe a US football player if you were in or NY or New Jersey.. as they are the "Jets", but alas also named after the plane sooo......)

        Oh and why do they get to decide....They OWN it! Make your own dictionary, and if you have better rules and definitions, gradually you would have the control over what is included or not.

        (They being whomever bought or inherited from the original brothers of course)

  3. banjomike
    WTF?

    So "Jet of water" is now illegal?

    So much for progress ....

    1. Willington

      Jetwash

      So what is the proffered alternative to Jet? I want to copyright it with the suffix "wash".

      1. NomNomNom

        stream

        stream is becoming an popular alternative to jet. All those text adventure games are going to have to be rehauled.

        "You are in a corridor. There are exits to the North and South. There is a hole in the wall. What do you want to do?"

        >Look in hole

        "You peer into the hole. A jet of boiling water shoots out of the hole and kills you instantly"

        1. Thomas 4
          Meh

          @NomNomNom

          Meh. Makes a change from bloody Grues all the time.

    2. Tom Wood

      Yes

      it's absolutely illegal. As are fire hoses, water jet cutters, and the sort of water cannon that may be threatened as a way to disrupt a riot.

      Using any of these devices, or even thinking about jets that are not of the engine variety, will get you a jail term of between 6 months and four years. And you better not live in a council house or you'll lose that too.

      Yours,

      The Government.

    3. wag
      WTF?

      ILLEGAL? It's a dictionary

      It's not a statute book. Dictionaries are lists of words in common usage, they are not legally binding in any way shape or form. Usage dictates what goes in the dictionary, not the other way around.

  4. Bumpy Cat
    Devil

    "Growlery"?

    I suppose that could be replaced with "server room" or "datacentre" these days ... certainly, I spend a lot of time growling while I'm there ...

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Happy

      @Growlery?

      Have you looked at the urban dictionary's definition of a growler?

      Maybe a room dedicated to that would be interesting!

    2. Michael Dunn
      Headmaster

      Growlery

      Already done - cf Bleak House by Dickens.

  5. Michael Philbey 1

    Growlery

    I think every man needs a growlery, otherwise known as a shed

    1. Thomas 4

      Growlery

      (noun) - A room used to complain about nocturnal birds.

  6. caffeine addict

    can't words have numbers in them?

    Shirley, it should be "w00t" not "woot"....

    1. Adam 60

      Don't call me Shirley!

      Can't play it in scrabble if it has numbers in it!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Woot

      So what does woot mean?

      1. Mister_C
        Boffin

        w00t description

        from 2007:

        http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-w01.htm

        and from 2009

        http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/ar-col1.htm

    3. Rob Dobs
      Facepalm

      No. Grownups don't use numbers in their words

      see title

      1. jai

        re: No. Grownups don't use numbers in their words

        grownups don't use words like woot either.

        cos they're not 1337 enuf

        1. Steven Roper
          Go

          1'm 45 4nd 1 u5e num83r5 1n w0rd5

          pr1m4r1ly 4s 4 m34n5 0f 0bfu5c471n9 c0mm0n d1c710n4ry pa55w0rd5... ;)

  7. Paul Naylor
    Meh

    More new words needed

    Being Blackadder / Simpsons / etc. fans in our office, us lads are trying to get the words "embiggen", "cromulant", "contrafribularities" and "interfrastically" into the common tongue. Though no-one we know outside these walls know what we mean however.

    Nice to see that The Reg uses "embiggen" now and again though!

    Come to think of it, "nerdgasm" would be a good one too...

    1. Pan_Handle
      FAIL

      See me afterwards

      It's crumulEnt, bodoh.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Really?

      I'm anaspectic, frasmotic, even compunctous to have caused you such pericombobulation!

    3. Rob Dobs
      Boffin

      just a suffix really

      really this suffix is used on a lot of variations, each one not needing their own word.

      X-gasm just means a huge rush of pleasure from X

      Wargasm, nerdgasm, foodgasm, footballgasm... you get the idea.

      In some cases like Wargasm it can be used to derogatorily imply that subject gets sexual gratification from something that most think they should not.

      wow...I think I just a wordgasm.

    4. Imsimil Berati-Lahn

      Bladder

      ...Not to mention the Turboencabulator.

      We all need hydrocoptic marzelvanes fitted to our ambifacient lunar vaneshafts.

      However, I remain anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

  8. KevinLewis
    Coat

    Jet Wash

    Don't think I'll be taking my car to the local Jet Wash for fear of an F16 wiping it down.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back in my day we called slow food

    nutritionally subnormal

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Obvious trolls are obvious.

    But not, alas, funny.

  11. SoaG

    Under what conditions...

    ...would sexting be formal?

    1. BorkedAgain
      Headmaster

      Formal sexting

      When addressing the Queen, of course.

    2. Tom Maddox Silver badge
      Gimp

      Obviously

      When you're sexting the Queen!

    3. Stratman

      title

      If the parties had been properly introduced beforehand.

    4. NomNomNom

      at

      At dinner parties, tie and gown receptions and/or during sex

    5. Steve Foster
      Joke

      @SoaG

      Presumably, while wooting one's sexter-to-be...

      Which leads to the question of whether one needs to obtain fatherly consent first. A whole new area for Debrett's, methinks.

  12. IR

    Jet

    Since when did people stop using jet to mean a stream of water? Still very commonly used in my experience.

    I thought the sgt major was a lady.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    What on earth

    So what on earth do mankini and jeggings mean?

    Come on guys, you just made them up didn't you?

    Would it not be more relevant to include words in common use, which generally means those that people have heard of?

    1. Rob Dobs
      Boffin

      sorry I know the answer...

      Mankini is a bikini on a man....the show talk soup on the E! network in the U.S. has a regular character called "Mankini" that comes out wearing...a bikini of course. Wish I had never seen that one.... I guess some people use this to refer to speedo style bathing suits that look like the bottom half of a Bikini (that are rare in US, but more common in the EU)

      Jeggings are a cross between Jeans and Leggins, they are lycra/strech pants that form-fit but look like they are jeans made of Denim. On an attractive woman, they are VERY form fitting.

      Of course Conan O brien wore a pair, which was another sight I could have gone a life without seeing.....

    2. Fibbles

      Hate to break this to you...

      ... but they're both in common usage, Jeggings are leggings designed to appear as if they made of denim. A mankini is a skimpy bit of swimwear for blokes (see Borat).

      Tbh though, the COED has been adding very questionable words for years now. I'd stick to the good old fashioned OED. It's got a lot more heft to it which should come in useful next time you hear someone use the word 'sexting'.

  14. Daniel Garcia 2
    Holmes

    Retweet and marconigram

    there is something eerie about those two words that make think that they will share the same fate for similar reasons.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Style, not grammar.

    "Sexting also gets the nod: for informal usage only, grammar fans."

    The use of informal language is a question of style, not grammar. But then, a fair percentage of the internet's grammar Nazism is actually style Nazism.

  16. Ru
    Meh

    Mankini?

    They're a few years late with that one. Seems like it has already fallen out of pop culture and will be blissfully forgotten in the not too distant future.

  17. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Tell me............Please

    That "leverage" has not been recognised as a verb

    1. Michael Dunn

      Yes!

      Back on my favourite Bete Noire - see frequent postings.

  18. Spot the Cat
    WTF?

    Impaludism?

    Norfolk? Shirley not? Here in Norfolk we'd refer you to certain parts of Lincolnshire. Impaludism certainly threw the spellchecker though, as apparently did spellchecker.

    1. Frederic Bloggs
      Megaphone

      Wrong place

      Not Norfolk (apart from possibly around the A17 between Kings Lynn and Wisbech), but dear old Slough. I ought to know, I am an Old Paludian.

  19. Neil Paterson
    Coat

    Not just compiled...

    ...but wrote. The Fowler brothers had to actually write the entries from S to Z, as the complete OED hadn't got that far through the alphabet by then.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concise_Oxford_English_Dictionary

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Typetrawler...

    Someone who's job has recently become S to Z...

    Not to be confused with typetroller ofc...

  21. Armando 123

    Just please tell me ...

    ... that they kept my favorite obscure word, "velleity". Although given that my grandfather was from the Appalachian foothills in Kentucky, we never used the Oxford pronunciation.

    1. Michael Dunn

      and

      farctate.

  22. Adrian Esdaile
    Thumb Up

    As an architect...

    it is now my solemn duty to include a 'Growlery' in every house I design from now on.

    growlery – "place to growl in, private room, den" - BLOODY BRILLIANT.

    1. Mystic Megabyte

      @Adrian Esdaile

      I go to my growlery when I'm overgruntled. A growlery should have at least one soft wall for throwing things at.

  23. Martin Maloney
    Trollface

    tsk

    1) One of the two words that you can play in Scrabble, when all that you have is consonants.

    2) An interjection, used to express contempt for comments that don't meet your own high standards.

    1. ratbert
      Headmaster

      tsk indeed

      sh, ch, by, my, hymn, pry, dry, fry, rhythm... need i go on?

      1. Martin Maloney
        Headmaster

        Oops!

        OK, I missed "sh" and "ch." The others, though, use "y" as a vowel, thus they don't qualify as being composed entirely of consonants.

        You missed "nth," although one could make a case that the "n" functions [chortle] as a vowel.

        "Tsk" to both of us.

    2. Lockwood
      WTF?

      Two words?

      Gypsy

      Crypt

      Crypts

      Tryst

      Trysts

      By, My, Thy, Shy, Fry, Sty, Sly, Why, Dry, Fly, Try

      I'm guessing the other one that's not a Y word is cwm?

      1. Martin Maloney
        Coat

        Not the other word

        The vowels are A E I O U and sometimes W and Y. That's why I disqualified "cwm."

        If you wagered that the other one was "cwm," given that you lost, would you Welsh on the bet?

      2. Sam Therapy
        Happy

        You forgot syzygy

        Which was also Atari's original name.

  24. Grumpy Old Fart
    Headmaster

    Loose vs Lose

    So when are they going to allow 'Loose' as an alternative spelling for 'Lose'? Surely more people use this than use 'jeggings'?

    I'm fed up of getting growled at* as a "Grammer Nazi" (sic) for correcting people on this, and I'm fed up of seeing commercial publications that should know better making this mistake.

    For the love of all things shiny, just put me out of my misery and include 'Loose' as an alternative spelling for 'Lose'. Then I can stop twitching.

    (*in my Growlery...top word, I shall strive to reintroduce it)

  25. Anonymous IV

    @GoF - too lose le trec

    You can have 'loose' for 'lose' only if people commit to using the word 'looser' to mean 'loser'...

    Then nobody will have a clue about what is being said.

    1. Martin Maloney
      Paris Hilton

      @ Anonymous IV

      I infer that you've never experienced looser.

      Believe me, looser is definitely a loser.

  26. ChrisElvidge
    Boffin

    Tradition?

    Today marks the launch of the centenary edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, first compiled by the Fowler brothers in 1911: an event traditionally marked by a press release including words added for the first time.

    How can a first time event be "traditionally marked"?

    1. Hatless Pemberty
      Coat

      Tradition

      Because it is a very unique event?

  27. Hatless Pemberty
    Headmaster

    Woot! Humbug!

    So I'll take it that nobody reads Dickens anymore, as the growlery is mentioned several times in "Bleak House" (as seen on TV not so very long ago.)

    At this rate people will soon be confused at Dr. Watson's proclivity to ejaculate at every turn.

    1. Michael Dunn

      @Hatless

      "At this rate people will soon be confused at Dr. Watson's proclivity to ejaculate at every turn."

      Ah, yes, well....

      And I did point out the Bleak House reference before I came to your posting.

      And you say "nobody reads Dickens anymore." I think that perhaps very few people actually read anymore; isn't there that well known oxymoron "Sun reader" often mentioned in the press?

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