Twerking: ‘Dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance’ – just wait till they catch their daughters twerking to this song
Selfie: ‘A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website’ – occasional selfies are acceptable, but posting a new picture of yourself every day isn’t necessary
So as you may be able to tell some new words were added to the Oxford Dictionary Online recently, the new verb and noun on the street are ‘Twerk’ and ‘Selfie’. From the description twerking sounds similar to what it is (even if I did have to google it first to know what it was) but selfie sounds much more official that it is in actuality, one point being that your typical ‘selfier’ (if that’s correct) won’t realise you can use ‘one’ to refer to yourself; or be that oneself.
But to twerk I think, sounds much worse than it actually is, I thought it was a drug reference, shows how ‘down’ with todays youth I am, as it sounds similar to ‘teenth’ being the slang term for a small amount of meth or ‘tweaking/tweeking’ (don’t think meth heads mind the apelling) being slang for taking meth, don’t worry i’m not an addict I just watch Breaking Bad. In my opinion twerking does sound like a movement of sort, but more the recoiling from snorting a substance and pulling a face, not dancing like a hussy with daddy issues.
But yes these terms have been deemed worthy of the dictionary, which only requirement consist of needing to be popular enough in todays English language, as apposed to being accepted as proper terminology by some board of directors who sit about discussing words, sipping tea, eating buttery crumpets and use words such as poppycock and scoundrel, all the while filling in crosswords blindfolded (which is what I imagined) i’m assuming i’m wrong, although no one has proved me wrong.
I’m fine with the English language evolving as it should, not really sure how oneself would have got on with olde english in Willy Shakespeare’s day, it looks very similar to me of that in the Discworld series – many more E’s and beating around the bush rather than saying it as it is, a bit like Chinese where you can’t just say Uncle or Auntie but instead describe that it’s an Uncle on your dad’s side and directly related. I just think there needs to be a line of what is deemed worthy as we all know the general public are morons, they buy products from JML, watch X Factor and twerk along to it in their jeggings drinking WKD’s; these people need someone to ‘man the fort’ as it were and tell them right from wrong, even Billy Ray Cyrus tweeted ‘what the heck, is wrong with my daughter’ after Miley’s performance at the VMA’s with i’m who I am assuming was beetlejuice. If everything popular was just accepted as the norm’ then we really are in a sad way and the world in a few years to come will sacrifice itself out of pure delirium and for the benefit of mankind.
lol or surely should be l.o.l. as it’s an acronym for ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘lots of love’ was added previously but i’m ok with this. lol, abbreviation – laughing out loud; laugh out loud (used chiefly in electronic communication to draw attention to a joke or amusing statement), or to express amusement – I love how you said ‘coffee is not my cup of tea’. LOL! that is quite a poor example of using lol but you get the point and i’m sure anyone reading this isn’t scratching their head confuddled by what i just typed; and if they are they will not have a bloody clue what I have said this entire piece.
I just think someone needs to manage the 1000+ words a year added and stop the riff raff sneaking in the back entrance to Oxford’s book of words. I’m not good with words myself and hence write (not right) these pieces to improve my English, I do use some slang and phrases etc (there’s one right there) that aren’t deemed true English but it’s generally to make light of something or mock in a passive-aggressive/hiding behind the keyboard kind of way. But I do enjoy words, typography, proper grammar spelling and getting those things right; and I love a good ‘verbing’ of a word. But IMO (in my opnion) Selfie and Twerk need to jump in their ‘roflcopter’ and fly off to a distant land and take their cousins with them or where do we stop, next year it’ll be some other pitiful excuse for a word describing something else that lowers societies standards. Some of my less harmful suggestions are: iPhonography – to photograph with one’s portable telecommunications device. Flixting – to binge on movies and/or TV box sets through online streaming services. Grapple – to absorb and immerse oneself in the world of electronic devices and purchasing the newest device regardless of being necessary or not.
celchapman 