By Phil Riske, managing editor
(growlery [archaic] a place to retreat to, alone, when ill-humored)
Millenials are going to like this, but you’re ruining a beautiful language.
Actually, it’s the fault of dictionaries that buy into the latest slang or hip talk and make it an official part of English.
“Photobomb,” “selfie,” “twerking” and “meme” are the latest additions to the print edition of the Collins English Dictionary.
According to the BBC, these terms are just a handful of the 50,000 new items that have been added to the dictionary’s 12th edition.
The latest additions — which also include “vape,” “Bitcoin” and “adorkable” (a portmanteau that clinched a spot in the dictionary after winning the most votes in a recent Twitter contest) — are said to bring the total number of entries in the Collins English Dictionary to 722,000, reportedly making it the largest single-volume dictionary in print.
Here’s the challenge: Let’s find existing synonyms for someone sneaking into a photo, or taking a photo of him/herself, or doing a new gyration.
Perhaps “adorkable,” meaning socially inept or unfashionable in a charming or endearing way could apply to what’s happened to the Mother Tongue, but I’ve got a better word for it:
Bastardization.
