Hella ridic new words to make you lolz: ODO August 2012 update

“Lolz”? “Tweeps”?
“Mwahahaha”, for Goodness’ sake? It was bad enough when you made
“LOL” a word. The bastardisation of the English language continues. I
wish you would let us vote these vile “words” out of the dictionary.
Each time you add one, my ability to correct people diminishes (I have to fall
back on the argument that these are “informal” terms). It is as if
you scoured the internet for the most crass and vulgar terms you could find and
added them just to offend purists and lovers of English (exempli gratia,
myself). As for “ridic”, I feel like crying. What happened to the
days when we turned to Latin (like English, a civilised language) to help us
coin new words? John Dryden must be turning in his grave. I pasted this post
into Microsoft Word to check the spelling and grammar before posting it; it
flagged every one of these new “words”.

DonutGuy: You fail to understand – the English language is constantly changing whether you like it or not. And if you are a purist of the English language as you claim, shouldn’t you be “Doughnut Guy”?

Once upon a time, I referenced OWLS as a pedagogical tool for word use and definitions. Now, not a chance. If I wanted to learn ugly slang, I’d just hang out at the corner with the druggies and other brain-dead types. Thanks for nothing Oxford.

@DoughnutGuy and others with similar worries about the language, it’s probably as well to consider the purpose of the Oxford current dictionaries. They aren’t user manuals for English speakers containing a list of acceptable words that we are somehow required to use, instead they aim simply to be a record of English as it is used in the real world. Thus if the lexicographers find sufficient evidence of use of neologisms like “ridic” and others then they will include them to maintain the currency of their record.

It is worth remembering that old words can be revised out of current dictionaries just as new ones can be included in them. Compare the 1911 1st edition of the Concise with the 2011 12th edition and you will find numerous examples of early-20th-century English that have faded from use and are no longer included. Meanwhile they (along with “ridic” and its ilk) will all stay in the full-size historical reference OED so in a couple of hundred years time a historian or writer can find out that a young person alive in 2012 might have said “ridic”.

So don’t worry about the decline of English, it’s alive and well in the hands of you, its speakers. Celebrate instead its diversity and evolution!