What's the Word

We know the English language is constantly evolving. Especially in the digital era that we live in new words and trendy phrases are popping up left and right. But when does a new word actually become a word, like a real word? I hunted around the web for a while and made some new discoveries about this process, particularly from merriam-webster.com.

Believe it or not there are actually people that get paid to spend hours reading magazines, books, and other published materials in search of new words.

I can picture it now

"Honey, would you get your nose out of the sports section and take out the garbage!"

"Quiet, I am tying to work over here!"

At the Merriam-Webster office they call this activity “reading and marking”. If they find a new word or new variation of a word they mark it along with what context it is written in. Then the word gets put into a computer as a citation. From there it is reviewed by someone called the “definer”. Once the word is used in a substantial number of citations, that come from a wide range of sources, over the course of several years, then the definer determines it’s meaning and whether or not it should be added to the dictionary.

It's serious business, but there area also a few exceptions. If a word makes a enough of an impact to look like it is going to be an important word that is likely to last it just might get to skip the lengthy process and jump right into the dictionary. This was the case with the word AIDS in the 1980’s.

So we know that new words are making their way into our modern vocabulary, but what about the old words, do they ever die off? Absolutely. Take Snollygoster for example. Snollygoster was removed from the dictionary almost a decade ago and it means "a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician”or at least that is what it USED to mean, if you know what I mean.