"Meh" in the dictionary
I don't see why not. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
'Meh' makes Collins English Dictionary
The interjection "meh" has beaten "frenemy", "huggles" and "jargonaut" for inclusion in the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins English Dictionary following an invitation to the unwashed masses to submit neologisms reflecting the current state of play with our beloved mother lingo. According to the Times, meh was chosen by …
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Monday 17th November 2008 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
perhaps not so new, but no-one cares about research
It is perhaps likely it comes originally from the Greek Mu or Mju, often used with Alpha and Omega, meaning the beginning and end, making Mu mean the middle or neither the one or the other.
Seems to fit better with how languages evolves, but i would not go so far as to correct someone who cannot see past their TV at the er thousands of years of history and creativety we had before the Simpsons.
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Monday 17th November 2008 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Stupid
It's just a publicity stunt for the new edition.
They stick a bonkers word in so that dumbass journos with nothing better to write and an inability to find an actual story having spent all weekend sat in front of the telly getting plastered, devoid of the creativity required to fake or make a story will reproduce as if it's useful copy.
However, in reality all they have done is slap together a half arsed advert for a dictionary at the bidding of some smelly tenured word geek in Oxford.
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Monday 17th November 2008 11:54 GMT Hollerith
neologism chasing
I've never understood the urge of dictionary makers to add the latest slang or catchphrases. It dates so quickly and, really, does anyone need to look up catchphrases and the cute-word-du-jour? They are common knowledge. Dictionaries are trying hard to be sexy, but I'd rather they give a word, say, 50 years to prove itself. Slang dictionaries are different creatures, and the etymology and history of use of slang is interesting of itself. But a slang dictionary records words and phrases that are ephemeral. Let's not confuse them with real dictionaries.
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Monday 17th November 2008 12:22 GMT Tony Hoyle
Dictionaries have always done this
I had one years ago that was so old it had a definiton for 'Blackshirt' for example, which isn't a word you'd find in most dictionaries today (indeed google shows it only on wikipedia as a historical reference).
Agree that cromulent should be in there as well (someone will probably claim that has latin roots as well).
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Monday 17th November 2008 13:35 GMT Sandra Greer
You need this stuff in dictionaries
because 50 years from now, someone will be reading an archive and need to know what these things meant.
Not to speak of English learners abroad now, or here about 5 years from now.
I am delighted to have definitions of "twee" and "take the piss" in some dictionary, even now. Apparently "twee" entered the English language around 1905. The approximate Americanism is given as "corny", which appeared at about the same time, it seems, though it's hard to tell.
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Monday 17th November 2008 13:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
for the "meh" 'ers out there.
the true meh'er would not have even been that bothered to even comment with a "meh". so those of you that did reply must have been more bothered to actually comment on such a thing. so liers, damn liers i call thee! for the very thing you are claiming to be, you are, by definition, as not, by your very proclomation!
haha! have at ye, knave!
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Monday 17th November 2008 13:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's a perfectly cromulent word
So what will they put in the philology section. You know, where the dictionary says that such-and-such a word came from old Norse and was used by Conan-Doyle and Bronte ?
I guess they will just have to say that the dictionary publishers just saw it in a funny cartoon once.
Good work chaps, carry on.
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Monday 17th November 2008 16:56 GMT Pascal Monett
Used to be impressed
I used to be quite impressed by the concept of "living language" as opposed to a dead one. I always thought that a living language was a wonderful thing.
Until I got an Internet connection.
At that point I realized that the wonderful changing property of a living language is simply due to the overwhelming numbers of the uneducated masses that mangle parts of it so consistently that it becomes a new part of the language.
Like astronauts drinking their own piss, it really erases the glory from the notion.
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Tuesday 18th November 2008 09:44 GMT yeah, right.
dictionaries...
...are descriptive, not prescriptive. So long as they document where they got the usage from, and date its first known use, then they're doing what they were meant to do.
If you want historical usage, then get a historical usage dictionary. Dictionaries of contemporary language need to keep up with what is actually contemporary. "meh" seems to fit that definition.
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Tuesday 18th November 2008 10:15 GMT RogueElement
meh?
OFFS, by the same argument, should also be included. But I do protest, doth the man protest too much? Meethinks not. An article with no Paris Hilton is bad enough, No IT theme (unless we are to consider the bullsh.. that the Collins Dictionary appears to be desperate to emulate) normally attracts words of derision... but no PH, no IT and no fekkin IQ either? Must be a recession in the media too.
"Al hiv an ingin in an ah", as every Dundonian knows, is lunch.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
