UK Today News: If you thought the sacrosanct pages of the revered Oxford English Dictionary would be soiled by the mere mention of slang lingo, you could not have been more wrong. This Bible of the up-keepers of linguistic sanctity accepted some of this hitherto outcast group of words as a part of the Queen’s language.
Call it accepting the advent and hold of the age of information or moving with the times, but the latest words that have found their way into the English language are sure to raise many an eyebrows. Many of those words are used most frequently by the teens around the world while using their most favored means of communication – BB’s and FB for example.
Those words, actually phrases, that have been accepted by Oxford University Press include acronyms like LOL, OMG, FYI and the most shocking of them all WTF! Even the heart symbol that is used in online conversations and popular culture to depict love for someone has been added in the dictionary. This means that the next time one uses these words, one is actually speaking ‘correct english’.
Now, the snobbish English University could not entirely drive away from its traditions, could it? So, they traced the first usage of these seemingly newer words/phrases, coming out with unbelievable conclusions.
If the Oxford did not tell you, would it be easy to believe that OMG was first used as early as 1917? Perhaps, the G still stood for God back then and not Gosh like it now does. LOL – the universal reaction whether or not you understand what the other person is trying to say – was in use in the 1960’s. At the time it stood for ‘Little Old Lady’ not Laugh Out Loud. Even the heart symbol was used in stickers in 1984, way before you could profess your love through it.
In any case, looks like Britishers are all set for an upgrade in the language known as ‘english’.
