"A monster online dictionary of the rich colourful language we call slang... all from a British perspective"
"A veritable cornucopia of streetwise lingo, posted and defined by its readers."
LOL -- 'Webspeak' invades Oxford dictionary
"The venerable Oxford American Dictionary has added a ginormous (adj., not included) list of words inspired by the interweb (noun, included). The next time you look up a word, expect to see lots of abbreviations, webspeak and casual slang."
"Every now and then somebody e-mails me along the lines of 'I’ve come across this recently. Is it a word?' My instinct is to reply that if you can say it and spell it, then it’s a word. But such philosophising is hardly a reply to the question that’s actually being asked. What my questioners are seeking, of course, is permission, the stamp of authority that reassures them they will not be thought ignorant if they use their discovery."
"One of the more common questions that arrive for the Q&A section asks how many words there are in the English language. Almost as common are requests for the average size of a person’s vocabulary. These sound like easy questions; I have to tell you that they’re indeed easy to ask. But they’re almost impossible to answer satisfactorily, because it all depends what you mean by word and by vocabulary (or even English)."
Impactful ignorals. New terms that blush unseen.
"If the word, however spelled, is so common, why isn’t it in most dictionaries? By one of those odd coincidences, a similar question was asked by another subscriber in reference to impactful; yet another commented on the noun use of strive, as in 'our strive towards profitability', found quite often online but which is also unnoticed by lexicographers."
"The Devil's Dictionary is a satirical reference book written by Ambrose Bierce. The book offers reinterpretations of terms in the English language, lampooning cant and political doublespeak. It was originally published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book before being retitled in 1911."
Three of the web's most awkward phrases
"Back in the day, Shakespeare enriched the English language by pumping out neologisms like a maniac. Fast forward 400-plus years, and we don't really have an official bard, per se -- at least not in corporeal form."
One book you may not be able to buy
CNN Video (2'34"): "The 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary may not be printed, reports CNN's Ayesha Durgahee."
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