Come and get it! New Words.

The Collins Official Scrabble Words dictionary has added hundreds of new words to its list, reflecting recent developments.  They include “thang,” “innit,” “grrl,” “Wiki,” and “Myspace.”

At the beginning of the school year, a burgeoning list of new words could be created, adding to it throughout the year as words like “Abbottabad,” or “The Dutchess of Cambridge” are added to our vocabularies.   A review at the end of the year would reveal which of these were keepers, and which slipped out of usage quickly.  I am guessing that “Abbottabad” will fade, while “The Dutchess of Cambridge” will remain with us for a long time.  At what point will “Wiki” and “Myspace” become obsolete?

This may seem like an exercise in Semantics, and it is, but it  addresses issues regarding Historical Linguistics and also Language Change, which is an area of study classified under Sociolinguistics.

historical linguistics, language change, linguistics, linguistics in the classroom, new words, sociolinguistics

Historical Linguistics, Semantics