February 10, 2020

"More than 550 new words, senses, and sub-entries have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in our latest update, including mentionitis, awesomesauce, safe space, and shticky."

The OED announces.

Wow, they stooped to "awesomesauce"! The earliest published use of "awesomesauce" was in a usenet discussion of a Taco Bell ad in 2001:
2001 Re: Shadowy Men in Taco Bell Ad! in alt.tv.kids-in-hall (Usenet newsgroup) 22 Sept. You guys are awesomesauce.
And then there's Twitter:
2009 @BKanizay 25 Nov. in twitter.com (O.E.D. Archive) Awesomesauce!!! The Muppets sing Bohemian Rhapsody. The most awesome thing you'll see today.
What makes the word a dictionary-worthy part of the language is its normalization in things like this:
2018 Woman's Era (India) (Nexis) 1 Apr. For enthusiastic travellers as well as passionate music lovers, this assorted mix of the most awesomesauce music carnivals are worth travelling for.
"Mentionitis," a word I've never noticed, though it's completely easy to understand. The only question is what sets it apart from all the other instant coinages that use "-itis"? Asking that, I have questionitis — questionitis on top of my bloggeritis, etc. etc. "Mentionitis" went through a journey. It originally was more about being fastidiously comprehensive, but it now means "a tendency towards repeatedly or habitually mentioning something, esp. the name of a person one is attracted to or infatuated with, regardless of its relevance to the topic of conversation." The reason "mentionitis" is in the OED, though, isn't because the OED is obsessed with mentioning all coinages to be comprehensive, but because it is associated with a pop culture character:
1999 H. Fielding Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason ii. 41 ‘It's Mentionitis,’ Jude was saying. ‘What's that?’ said Magda. ‘Oh, you know, when someone's name keeps coming up all the time, when it's not strictly relevant: “Rebecca says this” or “Rebecca's got a car like that”.’
"Shticky" you don't need a dictionary to understand once you know "shtick." I'll just observe that "shticky" feels usable because it's so close to "sticky." Or, actually, it's harder to use. You could be misunderstood. You just seem to be saying "sticky" with a speech impediment. Hint: Never say it, write it.

"Safe space" is "a place or environment in which people, esp. those belonging to a marginalized group, can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm." The first use in writing has been discovered in 1974:
1974 Daily Independent-Jrnl. (San Rafael, Calif.) 26 Feb. 13/1 Miss Bernhardt believes she must make a safe place, a warm environment where there is trust, where people's identity is respected and where they will not have to perform or be judged... ‘Then it is safe to say something you have not said out loud to anyone... You have a safe space to try new things.’

61 comments:

rcocean said...

Most leftists have Trump mentionitis.

Nonapod said...

It seems that the OED are behaving like a bunch of try-hards. In fact, at this point it wouldn't surprise me if the OED should just incorporated the entirety of Urban Dictionary.

henry said...

living language at work. explains why some want a living Constitution.

Beasts of England said...

I’ve tried to sneak ‘awesometastic’ into the zeitgeist, but the inclusion of awesomesauce likely dampens my lexicographical fantasies. Maybe I should devote more energy to ‘stripperlicious’...

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

We already have far too many words.

rhhardin said...

We need a useful new word, like cuntfucker.

rehajm said...

Craptacular made it in 2017, so I'm good...

Nonapod said...

We've come a long way from the Professor and the Madman's struggles to hunt down word origins. It used to be that finding the earliest usage of a word required manually combing through loads of books, articles, reams of obscure texts like shipping manifests ect. Now they have tools like search engines and the internet Wayback Machine. And all that to determine that most neologisms can be sourced to some witty neckbeard on a Usenet forum.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I hope the following made it:

- Reeeee
- Mansplain/ing
- Woke
- Incel/Femcel
- THOT
- Zoomer

Failure to include the above (among others )counts as an epic fail.

Meade said...

"We need a useful new word, like cuntfucker."

Flip it. fuckcunter. Now it does double duty. ex.: "Where's Hunter?" Fuck Hunter.

rehajm said...

For all you yanks not in the know allow me the pleasure of introducing you to the lovely lexicographer Susie Dent.

Her campaign of the week: Apricity: the warmth of the sun on a chilly day. I'll bring this word back if it kills me...

rhhardin said...

What do we call this animal?

What does it do?

It eats ants.

An eatanter.

old BC cartoon

tcrosse said...

Shtick derives from Stück, as in a piece of business. SCTV once did a martial arts sendup called Shtick-Fu in which everyone fought like the Three Stooges.

rhhardin said...

What's against it is that verb + er is the agent of the act.

Meade said...

Fuck Hunter and the road he horsed in on.

MD Greene said...

And here I thought "awesome" was misused and irritating. It arose centuries ago in a reverential religious context and has been watered down so much over time that its current meaning is something like, "oh, that's good."

"You can come to my birthday party? Awesome!"

"The burritos at Taco Bell are awesome."

Hahaha.



tim in vermont said...

Awesomesauce. Synonyms: Keen, neat-o, bitchin’, far out, the bees knees, the cat’s ass...

tim maguire said...

Awesomesauce is the only one I've heard before. Its use was a plot point in an episode of Parks & Rec.

madAsHell said...

You need a tag for GET-OFF-MY-LAWN!!

tcrosse said...

Awesomesauce was coined by somebody trying to write a limerick about Hugh Auchincloss.

stonethrower said...

Stooped.

Monk said...

"Fuck Hunter and the road he horsed on."

Day that the will be!

Monk said...

What the Dems impeachment plot was: a trickfuck.


pacwest said...

Lazy words. For every new word we need to eliminate two or more.

BarrySanders20 said...

As his mentionitis progressed, Biden's schtick grew old -- not even Michelle O could make the safe space kids eat his "That's Just Joe" brand of awesomesauce.

"Those aren't raisins! It's got turds in it!" they said.

And the media then realized that the frontrunner had no clothes.

Paul Mac said...

Lexicographers aren't word police but word fisherman or at least should be as Wordnik founder Erin McKean noted in her TED Talk (back when there wasn't as much noise to signal in them)

Achilles said...

Is craptasitic in there?

If awesomesauce got in before craptastic me and the OED we will have words!

madAsHell said...

Flip it. fuckcunter.

A palindrome without the symmetry.

Yancey Ward said...

Awesomesauce is fabulicious.

mockturtle said...

Hope 'conversate' doesn't make it.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Is this the same awesomesauce that was added to the OED in 2015, or a new, improved awesomesauce?

As an American, I don't think awesomesauce can be regarded as a new word in the dictionary until it is added to Merriam-Webster. The Oxford English Dictionary only started publishing in 1884, whereas Merriam-Webster goes back to 1828.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Crapalicious

eddie willers said...

Can anyone tell me if a subscription to the OED includes a "highlight and right-click for definition" extension?

Chris said...

Proof of the decline of civilization.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I loved the reference to Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, the group that played the theme song and most other incidental music for Kids in the Hall. They're an extremely talented instrumental group in the tradition of the Ventures and Duane Eddy, ("We're not a fucking surf band!") and they have a subtly twisted sense of humor. I've always liked KITH, but it was my guitarist son who turned me on to Shadowy Men. We had the pleasure of seeing them live, at Pappy & Harriet's, a charming dive waaay out in the desert. A good time was had by all.

Nancy said...

Dear Ann, Can you explain how you assign tags? I tried and failed to find your "anthropomorphism" post using an OED tag but fortunately found it another way. Note to self: Coleridge, not Wordsworth.

Curious George said...

I hate the word...words....man cave.

traditionalguy said...

The OED must read the Althouse Blog comments.All of those words fit the commenters here. And the days The Professor enforces the banned commenters, it becomes a safe space

traditionalguy said...

Did I mention Trump is on a tear firing his enemies.There is no safe space for Enemies of Trump today.

Howard said...

Man cave is code for homophobic is code for log cabin closet republican

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Semantic progression, appropriation, and corruption.

mockturtle said...

Tradguy observes: Did I mention Trump is on a tear firing his enemies.There is no safe space for Enemies of Trump today.

The purge is on! Drain that swamp!

stlcdr said...

So, if a word makes it to the OED, can we use it in polite and/or formal conversation?

Leora said...

I remember encountering safe space in the late 60's in an article or book by or about Bruno Bettelheim who in his treatment of mentally ill children would create a circle on the floor that was a "safe space." I found the image very striking and its escape from therapy to campus life amusing. This was before Bettelheim became problematic for physically abusing some of his patients - apparently with good therapeutic results.

tcrosse said...

So, if a word makes it to the OED, can we use it in polite and/or formal conversation?

Fuckable is in there, so yes.

Nichevo said...

Howard said...
Man cave is code for homophobic is code for log cabin closet republican


You know, Howie, if you have nothing at all to say, it's perfectly all right for you to say nothing at all.

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

There is no safe space for Enemies of Trump today.

Other than in new their jobs, which they will very easily find, I figger.

Fernandinande said...

Is this the same awesomesauce that was added to the OED in 2015, or a new, improved awesomesauce?

"The words represent newer terms judged most significant and likely to stand the test of time, according to Oxford University Press."

Apparently the predictive powers of the OED people are rather poor.

Fernandinande said...

The OED announces.

Kinds pitiful, really.

It's like the NYeT and its ilk re-posting crap from twitter and pretending it's news; whereas the OED pretends those character strings based on misspellings and laziness are words.

TML said...

Ann, you might not have seen this, but you can now get the OED FULL subscription for $90 annually. I just signed up. That's an amazing deal.

rhhardin said...

Random House Webster's College Dictionary numerically scores each word by offensiveness, useful if you want to make a statement people notice.

Ann Althouse said...

@tml

Great news!

sinz52 said...

From what I saw on the news, other words that have been accepted include Jedi and lightsaber.

(For you Star Trek fans, "warp drive" has been in the dictionary for years.)

Narr said...

I'm still working through my two-vol microprint edition. Should have bought the automatic magnifying-glass upgrades!

But to complain would be otiose.

Narr
Live and learn

sinz52 said...

Fernandistein said: "the OED pretends those character strings based on misspellings and laziness are words."

Many words started out as slang, then evolved to be informal, and then were accepted as standard English. "Booze" was originally slang. Now, a hundred years later, it's standard English.

English isn't what some stuffy grammarians want it to be. It's how English speakers use it.

tim in vermont said...

I think when it comes to “mentionitis” the ultimate mentionee? Ferris Bueller.

Earnest Prole said...

I've been told my awesomesauce is particularly awesome.

Michael Ryan said...

“Awesomesauce “ has to be a lot older than 2001 because I had an admin assistant that used to say that about every 10 minutes in 1998.

Scott Patton said...

Itis is a word. Now ima go take a nap.