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Tech Buzzwords Added to Dictionaries 144

Posted by Zonk from the don't-forget-web20 dept.
Mark Owen writes "With technology buzzwords becoming so commonly used in daily life, Webster and Oxford have both begun to include some new terms in their latest editions. Some of their newest additions include: adware, biodiesel, codec, digicam, google (as a verb), geocaching, hacktivism, mash-up, rewriteable, ringtone, spyware, and texting."
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Tech Buzzwords Added to Dictionaries More

Tech Buzzwords Added to Dictionaries

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  • 'Texting' is a Noun? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@noSpAM.gmail.com> on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:02AM (#15674557) Journal
    texting, n.
    I thought 'texting' would be a verb. As in, "I just got an $1800 ticket for texting while driving" or "my teacher sent me to the principles office for texting during class."

    Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a better ones-and-zeros-smith than a wrodsmith.

    from the don't-forget-web20 dept.
    What the hell is web-twenty? Is that the time of day when all the pot heads get off their asses and sit at their iMacs and work on their crappy Phish tribute GeoCities site with flying toasters and images of Jerry Garcia?

    • Re:'Texting' is a Noun? (Score:3, Informative)

      by aymanh ( 892834 )
      I was going to post the same thing as well, Oxford dictionary added "text message" as a verb (as in "I just got an $1800 ticket for text messaging while driving"), but "text" itself wasn't added as verb from what I found in the article.

    • Re:'Texting' is a Noun? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dereference ( 875531 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:10AM (#15674612)
      I thought 'texting' would be a verb

      Actually it's called a gerund, which is typically any noun made from appending "ing" to a verb. It's correctly a noun, as in, "Texting is fun."

    • Maybe you should go back to grammar school. Neither of your two examples were using 'texting' as a verb.

      'texting' is no more a verb than 'running'. They're both adverbs of 'do'.

      I go running.
      I was running.
      I will go running.

      That is not to say that 'text' is not a verb. It is, just like 'run' is a verb.

      I run.
      I text.

      Thanks you, and good night.

    • What the hell is web-twenty?

      I believe it's a side effect of slashcode's limitations. At least, I know with the beta tagging [slashdot.org] feature we can't enter "Web 2.0", it has to be "web20".
    • Web 2.0, like the Web but cool (in the same way that being a member of the Linux Club at school is cool).

    • Gerund. (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Gesundheit.

      Suspecting words that like to cross dress as other parts of speech is within understanding. But seeing is believing.

    • Re:'Texting' is a Noun? (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Fun Guy ( 21791 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:31AM (#15674735) Homepage Journal
      Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a better ones-and-zeros-smith than a wrodsmith.

      Raelly? I never wuold have geussed.
    • "my teacher sent me to the principles office for texting during class."
      It's "principal's office". :-)

      Maybe I'm wrong, I'm a better ones-and-zeros-smith than a wrodsmith.
      *smirk*

    • I would have thought it should be text'ing since it the combination text and messaging just like do and not create don't. The characters omitted are replaced with an apostrophe. Then again, writting and grammer is the last thing I should be writting about.

    • from the don't-forget-web20 dept.

      What the hell is web-twenty? Is that the time of day when all the pot heads get off their asses and sit at their iMacs and work on their crappy Phish tribute GeoCities site with flying toasters and images of Jerry Garcia

      Don't you remember? O'Reilly owns the trademark for Web 2.0 [slashdot.org]. So from now on we refer to it as Web 20, GOT IT? Web 20.

      Willie: "Shinning, Lad. You want to be sued!"
      Bart: "Right, the Shinning"

    • From the article: "Defining google as a verb and as using the Google search engine is appropriate," a representative for Google told CNET News.com in an e-mail." That representative should check with Google's legal department - encouraging the use of a trademarked name is a really good way to lose the trademark. That's why Xerox spent megabucks on a campaign to make sure that people used "photocopying" as the verb for making a copy on a Xerox photocopier.
      • I don't think Xerox would be in any trouble, trademarkwise, if they accepted the usage of "xerox" as a verb to mean "to copy on a Xerox photocopier." The issue arises if they don't defend against the use of "xerox" as a noun to describe any photocopier and the use of "xerox" as a verb meaning to photocopy on a photocopier, including one not produced by Xerox.

        Google's representative specifically says that the use of "to google" meaning "to use the Google search engine" is appropriate. You can bet that th
    • "I just got an $1800 ticket for texting while driving."

      'for texting' is a prepositional phrase with the preposition 'for' and the object 'texting'. It takes a noun to be an object. 'Texting' is the name of an activity. Names are nouns. Note that I am talking about usage. As another poster stated, the word 'texting' has the form of a gerund which is a form derived from a verb that can be used as a noun. It can also be a verb. I am texting him a message right now. Some day that form may be recogni

    • "I just got an $1800 ticket for texting while driving"

      "Texting" isn't even a verb in your example. The only verb in that sentence is "got." "Text" would be a verb, as in "I text people." But "texting", as another poster mentioned, is a gerund.

      A simple (not fool proof) test to see whether a word is a verb, would be to try replacing it with another word. "I just got an $1800 ticket for paint" makes sense (gramatically, not necissarily logically). "Paint" is obviously not a verb.

    • This is all good and well, but what about the poor words that had to be cut to make room for the newbies?

      The humanity.
    • Web-twenty is referring to Web 2.0 [oreillynet.com] which should also be included as a new term.
    • As in, don't forget to add Web 2.0 as a new dictionary term.

      Lame joke, but that's what it is.
    • "my teacher sent me to the principles office for texting during class."


      Man, you got off light! She could have sent you to the principal's office and he wouldn't have been very happy with you at all. Proving some things from first principles at the principles office was probably kinda fun.

  • or in the new vernacular (Score:5, Funny)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:02AM (#15674561) Journal

    If you're looking these up in the new spelling dicshunaire referenced in this previous slashdot article [slashdot.org] (over 1000 posts!):

    • adwear
    • biodesel
    • coedec
    • dijicam
    • googel
    • jeocashing
    • hactivisem
    • mash-up (unchanged)
    • reerietabel
    • ringtoen
    • spiewear
    • tecsting

    • Re:or in the new vernacular (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:13AM (#15674625)
      Or for our more streetwise friends [slashdot.org]:
      adwizzle, biodizzle, codizzle, digicizzle, googizzle, gizzlecaching, hacktivizzle, mizzle-up, rewriteabizzle, ringtizzle, spywizzle, and textizzle
    • European variation on the Mark Twain text:
      he Conversion to Euro English...

      With the implementation of the Eurodollar underway in Europe these last few years, the European Union is trying to find new ways to standardize practices in Europe.

      The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.

      Conversion to European English
      As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spell
      • It's more likely that English and German will converge into some kind of übersprache by the steady infusion of Anglicisms into German. For example

        Autos / Möbel / usw. clever kaufen - 'clever' apparently being the new German word for wise or canny, but applied only to shopping.

        It's your Heimspiel. - McDonald's promotional slogan for the World Cup.

        Handy - a 'handy' is a mobile phone. Of course.

        A Beamer is a projector. I suppose it's equally strange that a Beemer is a BWM in some places.

        According
  • Never have I ever heard of that. I guess some people in the M-W offices got bored playing paddleball and decided to throw in whatever the office dullard had been spattering out. I guess they're saving "wiki" for 2007.
    • Speaking of which, the term "mouse potato" was apparently important enough to warrant an entry in Wiktionary [wiktionary.org]... ...way back in 2002. The citations they gave are from 1994 and 2001. The word seems to have fallen into disusage since the '90s, signifying to me that it was slang belonging to the same class as the '80s era "boss," "tight," and "the bomb." Ah, well, the Dictionary Overlords that we have for so long welcomed have changed the rules yet again.

  • Words in a dictionary? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bobsledboy ( 836872 ) <absentgravitas@@@gmail...com> on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:06AM (#15674585)
    Wait, so you mean to tell me that they are going to add new words into the dictionary? I for one am astounded.
    • Wait, so you mean to tell me that they are going to add new words into the dictionary? I for one am astounded.

      And yet, another year goes by where "l33t" is once again overlooked. You keep your head up, "l33t". We're all pulling for you.

    • Umm, yes. In *very* *very* old days, just when Dikshunairies were invented, it was common practice for the mainstream Dikshunairies to *ignore* words used in commerce and trade. I'm not sure when the convention changed - possibly mid-late 19th century - but for a long time, this was so. Nowadays, massive computer-generated concordances and frequency tables are much in vogue.

  • Buzzwords. (Score:2, Funny)

    by adamlazz ( 975798 )
    Well, they're not buzzwords now.

  • buzzwords (Score:3, Funny)

    by 56ker ( 566853 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:14AM (#15674630) Homepage Journal
    I'm still waiting for slashdot and trolling to be added

  • Implications of Google as a verb? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm interested in seeing their definition of Google - whether it means "internet searching" in general.

    IAMANAL, but I seem to have heard that if a trademark becomes a popularized verb/noun to refer to a general category of items (i.e. internet searches) it can be used by other companies as well. In this case, there could be a "Microsoft Google" coming along.

    Would this be correct?

  • Webster (Score:2)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    ...Webster and Oxford have both begun to include some new terms in their latest editions...

    Nitpick: This is Merriam-Webster, not "Webster". The various American dictionaries with "Webster" in the title are mostly unrelated to each other.

    (By the way -- "cybrary"? "mouse potato"? Did they get these words out of a 1995 issue of Wired?)

  • Paper Dictionaries (Score:3, Insightful)

    by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:19AM (#15674651)
    Who uses Paper Dictionaries anymore? I mean seriously, you have all the online resources you need in wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and google [google.com]. You have PDA's and cell phones that will hook you up to the internet, so that's not an excuse anymore.

    • Re:Paper Dictionaries (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Lots of people.

      I for one don't pause in the middle of a game of scrabble, open google and type in the decidedly dodgy word put down on a triple word score. I pick up my trusty OED and look it up!
      • I for one don't pause in the middle of a game of scrabble, open google and type in the decidedly dodgy word put down on a triple word score. I pick up my trusty OED and look it up!

        That is what a web enabled cell phone or PDA is for. And if you don't have one on your body at all times (including sleeping) then you can just hand in your geek card on the way out the door.
    • Who uses Paper Dictionaries anymore?

      I recently ordered a nice hefty leather-bound dictionary. And I use it all the time when writing papers on my computer. I've personally found that it's far easier for me to move my hands a few inches and flip through the dictionary to check on a word than it is to switch from my text editor of choice to a browser, punch in my word at m-w.com (or google define:word). It's certainly a lot less distracting, too. Honestly, I never would've guessed how much easier it is to

  • What is this world coming to (Score:5, Funny)

    by sprudel ( 984742 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:21AM (#15674671)
    I spit on these so-called "buzz" words. Ringtone? My audiotelegraph gives me a notification signal, dagnabbit!
  • Snake-oil-ng: Standards compliant but worthless encryption. Used by founder of Innersafe Corporation to warn others about the new generation of snake-oil encryption products using AES-256 in a way that make their security practically worthless. Snake-oil-ng can truthfully claim to be standards-compliant with AES-256, while providing less security than "snake-oil" using junk proprietary encryption. In one of many examples, allowing millions of passwords to be guessed per second while limiting the range of

  • I for one welcome... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pasquina ( 980638 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:26AM (#15674707)
    ...the new words officially added to the English language.

  • google is my dictionary (Score:4, Informative)

    by rucs_hack ( 784150 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:29AM (#15674720)
    in 99% of cases where I need to know how to spell a word, I type it into google.

    The 'did you mean' feature has yet to let me down.

    I don't know if they intended this, but it's so reliable that my dictionary stays on the shelf these days, and I barely ever have to use online dictionaries, except when I'm trying to locate a precise definition of a word.

  • OED first (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sane? ( 179855 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:29AM (#15674726)
    But as the article mentions, the OED was updated to include many of these terms earlier - and inclusion in the OED is much more the definition of if a word has arrived than Merriam-Webster.

    Why both reporting the also ran?

  • "With technology buzzwords becoming so commonly used in daily life, Webster and Oxford have both begun to include some new terms in their latest editions. Some of their newest additions include: adware, biodiesel, codec, digicam, google (as a verb), geocaching, hacktivism, mash-up, rewriteable, ringtone, spyware, and texting."

    Do you know many company name that became an official word in the dictionnary? Is Kleenex even one? I'm pretty impressed with what Google has accomplished
    • Company... yes... software product... yes... excessive use of ellipses... yes...

      Lots of people photoshop things when they edit them, regardless of if they are using adobe products.

      Also, if you read the article *gasp* you'll see the title: "Google joins Xerox as a verb."
  • I will boycott, hate, and spend the rest of my life lobbying against any dictionary that incorporates that horrifically stupid phrase into its vocab. This is slashdot, dammit. We have to do something.

  • Mash-up (Score:2, Informative)

    by ScottyH ( 791307 )
    Everytime I read this word I feel pissed off. I can't explain it...except for saying that it just seems so stupid.

    • Re:Mash-up (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dbcad7 ( 771464 )
      I have similary unexplainable feelings about the phrase "my bad".
    • I'm inclined to agree.. even though I really enjoy mashups (as in music) and make my own (OMG PLUG!) [spacemutiny.com] I really wish a different name for them had caught on. In the UK they tend to call them "bootlegs," but I find that too general a term. The real, Wikipedia-approved (*snicker*) term for the genre is "Bastard Pop," [wikipedia.org] which, although quite descriptive, is even more cringeworthy.
      • I always liked that kinda construction, and it goes back to days of oldskool hip hop.

        So you take that components of your mash-ups and title it, you know:
        Mario vs. London Philharmonic or whatever you've got going on in your track.
        Unfortunately saying: "I like to compose Vs. (versus)" sounds kinda like verses or "I like to write lyrics".

        I think if you avoid certain verbs before "versus" (drop, write, compose), and stick to more descriptive ones (track, mix, splice).

        Shit, I like that last one.
        "I really enjoy s
  • Why, oh why, is this a big deal? Dictionaries are not, by and large, prescriptive. They are not holy tomes to be referenced for authoritative knowledge on how language should be. Rather, they are collections of words, as they are used by people. When the use of a word changes, the dictionary will change to reflect that (rather than insist that people continue to use the old usage). When people start using new words, or stop using old words, the dictionary will change. Why is it that there is such a fu

    • Why (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AlpineR ( 32307 )

      1) It's not really that big of a deal. This is a summertime Friday on Slashdot. There is a small possibility that there will be an article posted here with less than Earth-shattering consequences.

      2) When a word appears in the dictionary, it's usage and spelling are defensible. You should no longer be considered illiterate if you write "adware" in a school report or magazine article. And the next edition of your word processor should stop trying to correct "adware" to "aware".

      3) As you say, the dicti

      • 1) It's not really that big of a deal. This is a summertime Friday on Slashdot. There is a small possibility that there will be an article posted here with less than Earth-shattering consequences.

        Indeed, slow news day. The fact remains that slashdot is not the only orgainzation that makes a big deal out of words being added to various dictionaries.

        2) When a word appears in the dictionary, it's usage and spelling are defensible. You should no longer be considered illiterate if you write "adware" in a sc

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EggyToast ( 858951 )
      Now the word is officially "archived." Without some historical archive on words and the uses of words, the idea of language changing over time could be easily overlooked by some in the future. Think about young kids whose only use for "gay" is for homosexuality and "bad." Without some archive that actually defines the word, the idea that at one point it meant "happy" could be forgotten. Looking back at historical text from the 30s and 40s, without that understanding one would end up quite confused.

      Bes

      • Reread what I wrote, then read my responses to other replies in this thread. I am not arguing that dictionaries should not change, or that the archival of the language is not important. I am arguing that the changes to the dictionary are more or less trivial, and that the specific changes are not news. Words go in, words go out. That is how dictionaries have functioned since their creation. Yet, every year, when the new editions are published, people single out a few words that are important to them, a
    • When you're playing scrabble, and you're holding B,I,O, and someone else just played DIESEL, and the B could go down on a triple word score, you won't be asking why it's a big deal.

  • A missing verb (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaveInAustin ( 549058 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:44AM (#15674823) Homepage
    Slashdotted: our site crashed after we were slashdotted. Come on, "Mouse Potato" made it, but not slashdotted? Who has ever used the words "mouse potato"?
  • They are the only dictionary that refuses to recognize "gullible" as a word.

  • Is that what the kids are calling it these days? (Score:5, Funny)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:47AM (#15674845)
    We were Texting it up all night, first I googled her codec, then I showed her my biosteel... just be sure to uninstall before you pixelate otherwise you will have a little nanobot to worry about. This method is sooo much better than mere self-storage. Just give her the ole chip and PIN that's what I always say. I look forward to our next mash-up


    I think I just accidentally cybered slashdot. crap. it all happened so fast. I just hope whatever I got is screenable
  • http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-09,GGLD:en&q=define%3A+S lashdotted [google.com]

    At least google and wikipedia has a definition for it, Webster's does not.
    Time for Webster's to join the 21st century.

  • Not the first time (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonym0us Cow Herd ( 231084 ) on Friday July 07, 2006 @09:57AM (#15674911)
    Other technical words have become common in English.

    Lightbulb
    Radio
    Radar
    Sonar
    Sonic
    Radiation
    Electromagnetic
    Radiator
    Dishwasher
    Dryer
    Microwave
    Television
    Telephone
    Software
    Spreadsheet
    Photoshop (as verb)
    Internet
    Modem

    Because brand names that describe a unique concept tend to become generic words, that is why we see Google used as a verb. Common trademarks used as generic words: Aspirin, Kleenex, BandAid, etc. Therefore, you can expect to see new words like...

    TiVo
    • Common trademarks used as generic words: Aspirin ...


      If I'm not mistaken, Aspirin is no longer a trademark in the US. Bayer failed to protect it properly and it fell into the public domain. Hence all the new Bayer ads that don't use the word Aspirin, referring to the product as "Bayer" in hopes that it will become the new name for Aspirin.

      Here in Canada, however, it's still a trademark and the ads still say Aspirin.
  • FTFA, emphasis mine:

    "Defining google as a verb and as using the Google search engine is appropriate," a representative for Google told CNET News.com in an e-mail.

    Makes perfect sense to me. I'm no trademark lawyer (or a lawyer of any kind, for that matter, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...), but as long as the new verb refers solely to using Google, does it dilute their trademark? I guess the concern is going to be whether or not the word use starts creeping and begins to mean using any

  • since google is now an 'official' verb (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MECC ( 8478 ) * on Friday July 07, 2006 @10:14AM (#15675048)
    Since google is now declared a verb, will that weaken the value of the word 'google' as a trademark? If I register 'googlearound.com' as a domain (not that I would do something so stupid, since godaddy, the Internet's official domain slut, already has), would it be harder for google to sue me?

    just wondering
  • They're just now adding the word "codec" to the dictionary? I don't know when it was introduced into the vernacular, but I first heard it in the early 80's. I'm sure it goes back a lot farther than that.

    Maybe they'll add "modem" next.

  • FAQ (Score:2)

    by jefu ( 53450 )

    How about FAQ?

    Scrabble needs "faq".

  • Educators were already complaining that students couldn't even write properly in class as they were often falling back on internet short hand in reports. It used to take an extremely long time for buzz words to get into dictionaries, they had to have a long history of usage. Now, it seems a couple of years of sketchy usage and you're good enough for Websters. I remember that when there was a story about them adding Bootylicious to the dictionary, which people get beaten for using now good choice on that, th
  • I'm glad to see this one. I hope that it is a sign of increasing popularity of this alternative fuel. Biodiesel has actually been around for some time now. For about $4K, you can buy a home biodiesel plant that is capable of producing 40 gallons a week of the stuff, with about 2 hours of effort, 50 cents/gallon worth of chemicals, plus whatever you have to pay for vegetable oil (waste vegetable oil can still be obtained for free, but I expect that will change as it gets more popular). And unlike ethanol,
  • Those are words that are used in a particular field (computers, in this case) that are created to deal with new concepts that are introduced in that field. In other words, they're just jargon.

    A buzzword is a word that generates 'buzz', i.e., it's getting a lot of attention and seems to pop up everywhere, even in places where it doesn't make sense. Sometimes even the word doesn't make sense, or becomes so popular that its meaning becomes fuzzy as people who never solidly grasped its original meaning begin
  • Interesting... all those words are included in the dictionary that has been included with Tiger since it was launched almost a year ago (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition). The only one missing is rewriteable, which is spelled rewritable in that dictionary. And, unlike the Oxford English Dictionary mentioned in the article, the verb google appears both capitalized and not capitalized.

    Frankly this looks like rather old news...

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