THE Oxford English Dictionary on Thursday June 25, 2015 added twerk, carnap, FLOTUS and scores of other new entries, including many introduced from Asia and
from online slang, to its latest edition.
OED Editor, Danica Salazar, said in
London that the word twerk, a
dance popularised by music stars
and Internet memes, actually dated
back about 200 years.
The Oxford English Dictionary on
Thursday added twerk, carnap,
FLOTUS and scores of other new
entries, including many introduced
from Asia and from online slang, to
its latest edition.
OED Editor, Danica Salazar, said in
London that the word twerk, a
dance popularised by music stars
and Internet memes, actually dated
back about 200 years as a
combination of twist and jerk first
spelled as “twirk”.
Salazar said the use of twerk to
describe a type of dance, which
emphasises the performer’s
posterior, has its roots in the early
1990s in the New Orleans ‘bounce’
music scene.
Salazar said the word itself seems to
originate from more than 170 years
before that.
He said: “Joining twerk in the
updated online OED is the acronym
FLOTUS, or First Lady of the US.
“A term that the First Lady,
Michelle Obama, felt obliged to
explain to London schoolgirls last
week when she mentioned her
FLOTUS Twitter handle.”
The editor said Philippine word,
carnap, meaning to kidnap or steal a
car, originated in the mid-20th
century in the US, but was no
longer used there.
He said another word from the
Philippines was presidentiable, “a
person who is a likely or confirmed
candidate for president”.
Salazar said throughout the years,
Filipino English speakers have been
adapting the vocabulary of this once
foreign tongue, using it to express
their own identity and way of life.
He said: “Many additions refer to
“specific elements of Philippine
culture, such as greetings and terms
of address.
“The boundless optimism of
Filipinos and their unshakeable
belief that things will work out in
their favour in the end is reflected in
the phrase bahala na.”
Salazar said several other new
entries are from South Asia and
South East Asia, where several
hundred million people use English
as a first or second language.
Katherine Martin, the OED’s Head
of US dictionaries, said the term
“Batchmate”, a member of the same
graduation class as another, was
used in both Philippine and South
Asian English.
Martin noted that among the latest
words popularised via the internet
are crowd funding, Internaut,
webisode and photobomb.
Martin said some words and
phrases are so well used that their
inclusion in the list of new entries
was perhaps surprising.
She identified them as dartboard,
tan line, young gun, South Korean, North Korean, Special Olympics and self-immolate.


www.dailyindependentnig.com/2015/06/oxford-dictionary-adds-twerk-carnap-flotus-english-lexicon/

Meaning?