It is said that the English language has more words than any other language in the world and it seems it might be true. According to the editors of the Oxford Dictionary there are at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary, but have you ever wondered how a word gets into a dictionary?
The British do not have a Real Academia de la Lengua to be proud of, so how do they choose the words they need to include in a dictionary? The answer is simple: people need to use it. Basically editors watch the word for several years to see how it is used in both spoken and written English. They check to see that the word is used to express an idea clearly, and that the idea is understood. Then when the word is seen in writing and speech regularly, it can go in the dictionary.
That was the way for new words such as “pescatarian” ( a person who eats fish but not meat) or “infinity pool” to refer to a type of swimming pool with an edge that makes the water appear to flow into the horizon.
The English language is constantly growing, developing and changing. Nowhere is this more true than on the Internet. There are new words phrases and acronyms being invented all of the time. Many of these disappear very quickly, but other stay and become part of the language, so it can be really useful to know some of them.
Have you ever tried reading the posts on My Space and had such a hard time understanding it that you had to stop after only a few sentences? Not anymore, just go to this site http://www.noslang.com/ and copy and paste what you cannot understand into No Slang.com and they’ll tell you what the heck they’re talking about.
Now, things such as f@ or n1 won’t be a mystery to you anymore.
