Merriam-Webster goes internet savvy

The growing influence on technology on our everyday lives is reflected in new words added to America's best-selling dictionary. "Selfie," "hashtag" and "tweep" now have official sanction.

The Deutsche Welle, 20 May 2014

The latest edition of Merriam-Webster's dictionary has been enlarged to include several words taken from the world of social media in a bid to keep up with the way language has changed under the influence of online technology.

"So many of these new words show the impact of online connectivity to our lives and livelihoods," the editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster, Peter Sokolowski, said.

"Tweep, selfie and hashtag refer to the ways we communicate and share as individuals," he added.

"Selfie," defined by the dictionary as "an image of oneself taken by oneself using a digital camera," was already admitted to the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013, where it was named word of the year.

The word "tweep," which the dictionary says first emerged in 2008, refers to a user of the Twitter online message service. Twitter is also likely the main origin of the word "hashtag," defined as "a word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text."

Other social-media-related terms include "crowdfunding," "catfish" (in the sense of someone who "sets up a false personal profile on a social networking site"), and the term "social networking" itself.

The dictionary has included other technological terms among the more than 150 definitions added to the 2014 updated version. These include "fracking," and "cap-and-trade," which has to do with systems controlling carbon emissions.

New culinary terms include pho, "a soup made of beef or chicken broth and rice noodles," and turducken, "a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey."

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, a subsidiary of Encyclopedia Britanica Inc., has approximately 165,000 entries and 225,000 entries. It was first published in 1806 by Noah Webster, and was influential in standardizing American spelling and speech.

tj/rc (Reuters, AP, AFP)

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“…  Government

Let us speak of government. We're not speaking of your government, but of any government - the way it works, how it survives, how it has survived, the way it campaigns, and how it elects leaders. It's going to change.

Years ago, I told you, "When everybody can talk to everybody, there can be no secrets." Up to this point on this planet, government has counted on one thing - that the people can't easily talk to each other on a global scale. They have to get their information through government or official channels. Even mass media isn't always free enough, for it reports that which the government reports. Even a free society tends to bias itself according to the bias of the times. However, when you can have Human Beings talking to each other all at once, all over the planet without government control, it all changes, for there is open revelation of truth.

Democracy itself will change and you're going to see it soon. The hold-outs, the few countries I have mentioned in the past, are doomed unless they recalibrate. They're doomed to be the same as they have been and won't be able to exist as they are now with everyone changing around them.

I mentioned North Korea in the past. Give it time. Right now, the young man is under the control of his father's advisors. But when they're gone, you will see something different, should he survive. Don't judge him yet, for he is being controlled.

In government, if you're entire voting base has the ability to talk to itself without restriction and comes up with opinions by itself without restriction, it behooves a politician to be aware and listen to them. This will change what politicians will do. It will change the way things work in government. Don't be surprised when some day a whole nation can vote all at once in a very unusual way. Gone will be the old systems where you used to count on horseback riders to report in from faraway places. Some of you know what I am talking about. Government will change. The systems around you, both dark and light, will change. You're going to start seeing something else, too, so let's change the subject and turn the page. ”