At large in a world of words

Seeking more “street cred” (n. popularity with or acceptance by the common people), Webster’s New World College Dictionary has added almost 80 new words and definitions, an update that reflects the nation’s current obsessions, from Al Qaeda and WMD on one hand to Botox and LASIK on the other.

The 1,700-page dictionary is updated every year as editors try to keep pace with a constantly evolving language and include what they deem the “breakout” (adj. achieving, resulting in, or characterized by sudden or unexpected success or popularity) words of the new millennium.

“We really think we owe it to the reader to change it every year,” said Michael Agnes, editor in chief of Webster’s New World. “Language reflects society and human endeavor, so [the dictionary] reflects changes in those very broad areas.”

Some of the words reflect the charged political and global landscape of the past several years. Militant organizations, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, are now in the dictionary. On the domestic front, “civil union” (n. a legally recognized marriage-like union of same-sex partners) and “faith-based” (adj. affiliated with or sponsored by a church or other religious organization) made the cut.

Agnes said that as American society has become more consumerist, new words related to food and fashion have gained currency. This year’s update adds “shiraz” and “syrah” (n. a red grape grown esp. in the Rhone Valley in France, now also in the U.S. and Australia). Also added is “cargo pants” (n. loosefitting, casual pants having a number of capacious pockets).

“Language encodes cultural properties,” said David W. Lightfoot, assistant director of the National Science Foundation and former linguistics professor at Georgetown University. He said a key function of a dictionary is explaining words and phrases bubbling up through the culture.

“You don’t need dictionaries to tell you the meanings of words you know,” Lightfoot said. “You’re looking up words that are not part of your experience and which encode this more or less exotic information.”

To keep tabs on the language, Webster’s has a staff of two citators and eight editors who pore over newspapers, magazines, novels and nonfiction books, as well as listen to radio and watch television, always on the lookout for new words. Every new word, new spelling or new meaning is indexed on a computer. The staff averages 1,500 new entries per month.

For words to be included in the dictionary, three criteria are considered: How long has the word been around? (A minimum of three years is typical.) How widely is it used? (It must show up in mainstream sources, not just obscure journals.) And how frequently does it appear?

“Frequency is a useful criterion because the dictionary is supposed to help readers understand language they encounter,” Agnes said. But he doesn’t want to include words that seem faddish and might disappear. For that reason, the following words did not make the cut this year: “ringtone” (a specialized ring for cellphones), “Netizen” (a user of the Internet), “Asiago” (a popular type of cheese), “Amber Alert” (a bulletin put out for missing children), “TiVo” as a verb (to record a TV show on a digital recorder).

But should those words hang around, they will be strong candidates for inclusion next year. No words were dropped from the dictionary this year, though that does occasionally happen. Some time ago, Webster’s dropped “copacetic” (adj. good, excellent, fine, etc.) -- a big mistake.

“We took it out and, sure enough, it had a resurgence, and it went back in,” Agnes said, “and we’re not taking it out again.”

Some linguists say dictionaries should strive for greater currency. Only with this year’s update, now trickling into bookstores, did Webster’s New World get around to including “chad”(n. any of the bits of paper that are separated from a punch card in the process of making the holes in it), which gained infamy in the 2000 presidential election.

“Adding ‘chad’ right now is five years out of date,” said Bert Vaux, a professor of linguistics at the University of Wisconsin. “I believe a lot of dictionaries try to avoid using ephemeral words -- words that they strongly suspect will come and go quickly. But as a linguist, I want to know what words have been and are being used.”

Agnes said Webster’s New World is including more words than it used to, especially proper nouns and exclamations. This year’s update includes the word “sheesh” (interj. used variously to express disbelief, surprise, annoyance, etc.).

“For a long time, dictionaries avoided things like this,” Agnes said, referring to “sheesh.” “They weren’t nouns. They were exclamations, and the thought was, do we really need this? We decided yes. We are championing American language.”