18 Jul ‘Woke’ Has Now Been Added To The Oxford English Dictionary

The English language is constantly evolving, much like a strange and complex organism adapting to its ever-changing surroundings. Old words that don’t see enough usage gradually die out like species facing extinction, and are left fossilised in history textbooks and linguistics footnotes, while new words spring up like fresh shoots, finding a new niche to fill in the lexis.

Over the last few years, particularly now that the internet has created a shared culture which operates without reference to nations or borders, we’re seeing a huge number of colloquial phrases and slang terms enter mainstream parlance. Just think of some of the terms we use today that would have sounded nonsensical just a few years ago, all of these new terms will have to be added to an updated dictionary in order to reflect our changing linguistic landscape.

In the last five years, the Oxford English Dictionary, widely considered by scholars to be the most comprehensive and etymologically-accurate lexicon available for the English language, has boasted a number of new entries. These entries have different meanings, backgrounds and contexts, but all have one thing in common – their usage was proliferated and spread online. Think of terms like “Post truth” or “crowdfund”. Words like “hangry” or “manspreading” or even “bants” – all of which have been added to the OED in recent years.

But the latest entry is probably the most contentious yet, and has got a number of people quite irate about the appropriateness of the entry.

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