Weird. Usually dictionaries wait many years for words to be established before including them (it's a physical dictionary after all). Adding delulu reeks of capitalising on the zeitgeist for PR
There is an article of this kind every year where we all get a chance to be up in arms about the fact that language and culture is ever-shifting and changing and not something static.
Is this "progress" or are we glorifying moving backwards by including this sort of language just to be "in"?
I really don't know how to feel about this, maybe it's my education making me bigoted, looking down upon what's clearly ephemeral; slang words like these come and go with time, and I think the timeframe for words to be included in the dictionary has greatly reduced.
Almost no one apart from a very small, terminally online subset of people will ever use these words and an even smaller subset will use these in IRL conversation; adding these is a bad idea and doesn't bode well for dictionaries wrt credibility.
They should release a DLC for dictionaries that covers slang like this, not make it part of the official English specification.
Most English dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. Odds are more people use these words than use a dictionary on a regular basis, and including them doesn't diminish the credibility of dictionaries unless you think their purpose is to curb the use of language instead of documenting it. Dictionaries include words labeled obsolete or archaic, informal and slang meanings, and even offensive and disparaging words without "glorifying" their use.
Your mission for the week, should you choose to accept it, is to get one (or more) of the "words" tradwife, delulu, or broligarchy used in the acceptance criteria of one of your JIRA stories in progress without it being noticed or commented on in any way.
16 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] threadHoe embarrassing
I'll stick with my physical Compact OED and 1942 Webster's New International, thanks.
I really don't know how to feel about this, maybe it's my education making me bigoted, looking down upon what's clearly ephemeral; slang words like these come and go with time, and I think the timeframe for words to be included in the dictionary has greatly reduced.
Almost no one apart from a very small, terminally online subset of people will ever use these words and an even smaller subset will use these in IRL conversation; adding these is a bad idea and doesn't bode well for dictionaries wrt credibility.
They should release a DLC for dictionaries that covers slang like this, not make it part of the official English specification.
But I'm surprised that work wife wasn't already in the dictionary.