Get ready to feel like your high school English teacher when the kid next to you asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Oxford Dictionaries has announced the latest additions to its modern words section, and let’s just say the Queen’s English these are not. From adding the definitions of words like butthurt (yes, really) and wine o’clock, OxfordDictionaries.com is looking more and more like the Urban Dictionary and less like its venerable cousin, the Oxford English Dictionary.
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So what words can our teenagers now use with the excuse, “But it’s in the dictionary!”? Here, a sampling of some of the latest examples of just how far we’ve fallen:
awesomesauce (adjective): extremely good; excellent
bants (noun): playfully teasing or mocking remarks exchanged with another person or group; banter
beer o’clock (noun): an appropriate time of day for starting to drink beer
brain fart (noun): a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly
bruh (noun): a male friend
butt dial (verb): inadvertently call (someone) on a mobile phone in one’s rear trouser pocket
butthurt (adjective): overly or unjustifiably offended or resentful
cakeage (noun): a charge made by a restaurant for serving a cake they have not supplied themselves
cat cafe (noun): a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises
fast-casual (adjective): denoting or relating to a type of high-quality self-service restaurant offering dishes that are prepared to order and more expensive than those available in a typical fast-food restaurant
fatberg (noun): a very large mass of solid waste in a sewerage system, consisting especially of congealed fat and personal hygiene products that have been flushed down toilets
fur baby (noun): a person’s dog, cat or other furry pet animal
glanceable (adjective): denoting or relating to information, especially as displayed on an electronic screen, that can be read or understood very quickly and easily
hangry (adjective): bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger
kayfabe (noun): (in professional wrestling) the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic
MacGyver (verb): make or repair (an object) in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand
manic pixie dream girl (noun): (especially in film) a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist
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manspreading (noun): the practice whereby a man, especially one traveling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats
meeple (noun): a small figure used as a playing piece in certain board games, having a stylized human form
mic drop (noun): an instance of deliberately dropping or tossing aside one’s microphone at the end of a performance or speech one considers to have been particularly impressive
mkay (exclamation): non-standard spelling of OK, representing an informal pronunciation (typically used at the end of a statement to invite agreement, approval or confirmation)
Mx (noun): a title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female
pocket dial (verb): inadvertently call (someone) on a mobile phone in one’s pocket, as a result of pressure being accidentally applied to a button or buttons on the phone
pwnage (noun): (especially in video gaming) the action or fact of utterly defeating an opponent or rival
rando (noun): a person one does not know, especially one regarded as odd, suspicious or engaging in socially inappropriate behavior
rly (abbreviation): (informal) Really
SJW (abbreviation): (derogatory) social justice warrior (also its own entry), a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views
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swatting (noun): the action or practice of making a hoax call to the emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address
weak sauce (noun): something that is of a poor or disappointing standard or quality
wine o’clock (noun): an appropriate time of day for starting to drink wine
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