OED adds ‘phablet,’ ‘waybread’ and ‘granny chic’
Through its 2015 fourth-quarter updates, the august Oxford English Dictionary’s stokes the PR fires with controversial neologisms.
Every quarter, the English language’s most famous dictionary pulls off a clever public relations stunt: poking a finger in the eye of those who love its product the most.
This comes in the form of controversial neologisms added by the august compendium, the Oxford English Dictionary, and its flirty online sister, Oxford Dictionaries.
The final quarter of 2015 brought no exception. The OED’s 500 new words, compounds and senses include phablet (“a very large smartphone”), waybread (“food made for eating before or during a long journey”) and the gender-neutral honorific Mx.
The OED and its Internet partner are distinct entities, and words tend to find their way into the faddish Oxford Dictionaries before they show up in the OED. Nevertheless, the two seem to share a mission of gleefully riling up word lovers, who in turn shovel coal into the publicity furnaces of articles, blog entries and tweets.
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