‘Vuvuzela’ among new words in Oxford

LONDON – The ever-present hum of the vuvuzela during this year’s soccer World Cup catapulted the plastic trumpet to prominence and now it has earned a place in the Oxford Dictionary Of English.Vuvuzela is among 2 000 new words and phrases added to the third edition of the dictionary, published last Thursday, which is compiled from analysis of two billion words used in everything from novels to Internet message boards.The credit crunch features heavily in this year’s additions, with terms such as “overleveraged”, having taken on too much debt and “quantitative easing”, the introduction of new money in to the money supply by the central bank, among those included.“Staycation”, a holiday spent in one’s home country, and “bargainous”, costing less than usual, also reflect the hot topic of belt-tightening among consumers during the economic downturn.New termThe rise of “social media”, itself a new term, has spawned several additions, including “defriend”, removing someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site, and “tweetup”, a meeting organised via posts on Twitter. Other words include:Bromance: a close but non-sexual relationship between two men.Buzzkill: a person or thing that has a depressing or dispiriting effect.Cheeseball: lacking taste, style or originality.Chillax: calm down and relax.Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry.Interweb: the InternetWardrobe malfunction: an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as a result of an article of clothing slipping out of position. (Reuters)