Welcome to the future: “Sext,” “dabbing,” and “man bun” are all now in the dictionary
If you feel like you need Google translate just to understand some of today’s slang terms, you can officially hop off the struggle bus. According to Mashable, sext and dabbing are now in the dictionary, but the official expansion of the English language doesn’t stop there. Among our favorite new words of the 300 dictionary.com added to its database are “man bun” and “bitchface,” and can we just say (with the most RBF face ever), that it’s about damn time? Like, scientists unearthed the cause behind resting bitch face an entire year ago, so that word definitely should’ve beenconfirmed way before now.
On the one hand, we’re enthusiastic about being able to prove the validity of these words to naysayers, but then we can’t help but wonder WTF took dictionary.com so long?
According to dictionary.com lexicographer (we want this job, BTW) Jane Solomon, the list requires a lot of research, therefore they can’t be all willy-nilly about tossing in words just because we deem them important enough to be included.
In addition to corpus research, which involves looking through texts and sources for word patterns, Solomon explained the other methods they use to make a word official.
"We also have lookup data," she explained to CNN. "We can see what words people have tried to look up on Dictionary.com that haven't led to a definition." She added, "It takes a lot of time and effort and thought, so as a lexicographer we give every word the same amount of respect and attention and care."
Alright, so we’ll cut some slack for the folks over at dictionary.com. Meanwhile, here’s a sampling of all the words that just became real words even though we’ve already been treating them like real words for a while now:
- 420
- alt-right
- Black Lives Matter
- bitchface
- Burkini
- cat café
- cheat day
- clicktivist
- cold brew
- dabbing
- dad bod
- friendiversary
- hangry
- K-pop
- Kush
- lightsaber
- man bun
- mic drop
- petrichor
- sext
- slay
- smackdown
- stochastic terrorism
- struggle bus
- superfood
- teachable moment
- uncanny valley
There you have it! If you’re one of those people who are resistant to the ongoing evolution English language, take this as a teachable moment to accept that these words do mean things, even if you don’t agree.
