Twitter Gets Its Own Verb in the Dictionary

It is widely recognized that the English language is in a continuous expansion, adding new words every year to its huge repertoire. What is not known is the fact that many of these new words aren't words at all, but only mere acronyms or abbreviations of common expressions used on social networks. This year's edition of the Collins English Dictionary has seen 267 new word additions, from which many stand out due to their origin: chats, social networks and mainly Twitter.

We all know that relaying a message through the usage of the spoken word is much faster than writing it down. So, using this simple axiom, a normal person should understand why teens or other social network users would have the tendency to shorten words down to gain more time and speed in their speech (typing to be more accurate).

Some of this year's entries include established expressions that we wonder why they weren't already in. These are the likes of omg (abbreviation for Oh my God), soz (abbreviation for sorry), noob (synonym for newbie), or woot (expression of joy).

Some of the most controversial entries on this year's list are just simple grunts and onomatopoeia that shouldn't be words in the first place. But since some human sounds, expressing different emotional states and feelings need to be used on a chat to avoid transmitting the wrong message, some of these “words” have made it in the English dictionary: mwah (the sound made in a noisy kiss), meh (expression of dissatisfaction), hey-ho (exclamation of happiness, surprise, disappointment or weariness), hmm (pondering something) or heh (laughing with a grin, with sarcasm).

But the shocker of all shocks was the recognition of Twitter as a verb that describes sending messages via the Twitter websites. Incredible or not, the Collins English dictionary staff recognized the impact Twitter has on the world today and decided to state the obvious. It now only remains to be seen whether the same staff will append a new description to the word tweet.

Elaine Higgleton, Editorial Director for Collins English Dictionary, said that “English is very good at absorbing new words. [...] (But) in three or four years a lot of these words may have fallen out of use and might well come out of the dictionary.”