It’s always a sure sign that an institution has been established: the induction of its cultural catchphrase into the English dictionary. For instance, it was a testament to the cultural relevance and sway of “The Simpsons” when “D’oh” was added. The founders of Twitter must be feeling a similar moment of importance.
This morning, Merriam-Webster released the 150 new words and definitions to be included in the latest edition of their dictionary. Included on that list were the words “tweet,” “social media,” “crowdsourcing” and “m-commerce.”
Peter Sokolowski, the Editor-At-Large for Merriam-Webster clarified the timing of these words in a short statement, which he very well should have made a tweet. “We’ve been tracking words like ‘social media’ and ‘tweet’ for years, of course, and now we feel their meanings have stabilized enough to include them in the dictionary,” he wrote.
Kind of pretentious there, Pete. I don’t know if there were any stability problems as to what “tweet” meant. It just took you guys at M-W this long to get a Twitter account. Charlatan! We don’t need your dictionary! We can come up with our own… uhhh… umm things to say… those things that compose language.
[via TechCrunch]
