The Daily Buzz‘Twerk’ to the music and ‘squee’ with delight as new words added to Oxford Dictionary
Squee with delight language lovers, because Oxford Dictionaries Online — the hippest language authority around — has promoted several new words to official English language status, including "srsly," "selfie," and "TL;DR."
Even the sexual dance known as twerking managed to twist and jerk its way into the dictionary.
[ Related: 'Twerk' dancing and 'selfie' photos added to English dictionary ]
The list also includes other modern phenomenons including the "food baby," defined as "a protruding stomach caused by eating a large quantity of food and supposedly resembling that of a woman in the early states of pregnancy."
Several informal and short form words that have become popular online made the list in Oxford's quarterly update today, with explanations parents might appreciate finally having at hand when they receive a coded message from their teen describing someone's selfie that made them want to vom.
• srsly, adv. (informal): short for ‘seriously’.
• selfie, n. (informal): a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.
• TL;DR, abbrev.: ‘too long didn’t read’: used as a dismissive response to a lengthy online post, or to introduce a summary of a lengthy post.
• twerk, v.: dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.
The word "twerk" is an especially timely addition as Miley Cyrus recently demonstrated the dance in its most shocking form, to a loud response, at the MTV Video Music Awards.
[ Related: Miley Cyrus' VMAs performance shocker ]
Mental Floss explored twerking's rise to popularity last month, from its probable roots in a more traditional and subdued dance from Cote d'Ivoire, Africa, to the music video of a 1990s song by DJ Jubilee, "Do the Jubilee All," in which everyone is told to twerk baby twerk.
Today, stars such as Miley Cyrus drop jaws as they twerk on.
