Tweetup, Paywall and Vuvuzela Added to the Oxford Dictionary of English

Languages are in a constant state evolution and this has been especially true ever since the internet became widely used. Various groups have evolved their own jargon and popular sites and services tend to come with their own terminology.

That's how you get words like "tweetup" and "paywall" added to the Oxford Dictionary of English. The third edition of the dictionary, which was initially released in 1998, comes with 2,000 new words, many of which are inspired by the web and its communities.

Tweetup is one of the additions and it may be quite obscure even for those versed in web culture. Even if you haven't encountered it so far, you can probably understand what it means.

It's a mashup of "meeetup" and "tweet" and describes a get-together organized via Twitter. It usually refers to meeting people you know from on Twitter.

Other words stemming from the web, or just technology in general have been added. "Paywall," restricting content on a website to subscribers, is one example.

Microblogging was also added to the dictionary, though the term is starting to lose its relevancy now that Twitter has been moving away from it and wants to be known as an "information-network."

Netbook also made the cut, another term that may fade away soon enough as the tiny portables that proved so popular in the past couple of years are under a serious threat from tablets.

Social networking is a big source of new words, as always. Another interesting addition is "defriend," the act of removing someone from your friends list.

Of course, with 2,000 new words, you can imagine that the sources are more varied than the web. The dreaded "vuvuzela" was added after becoming a worldwide phenomenon during the World Cup. Other entries include "bromance," "chilax" and "chill pill."