Pleasanton Unified School students return to class August 28, and many will sport brand-new dictionaries to aid them in their studies.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary has issued the latest edition of its tome just in time for the new school year in Pleasanton and across the nation.
This week, the highly respected dictionary publisher announced the decidedly unconventional words and phrases it was adding: "F-bomb," "sexting" and "man cave."
The definition of "f-bomb"?: The dictionary said it means, "the word f*** —used metaphorically as a euphemism."
If you need to use it in a sentence, Merriam-Webster gives you an example. "Accidentally dropped an f–bomb on television."
Other new words include:
- Aha moment
- Bucket list
- Cloud computing
- Copernicium
- Earworm
- Energy drink
- Game changer
- Gassed
- Gastropub
- Mash-up
- Systemic risk
- Underwater
"Some of the new words this year provide colorful images," says Merriam-Webster Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski in a news release. "Terms like 'man cave,' 'underwater' (when used to describe mortgages), 'earworm,' and 'bucket list' paint vivid pictures in your mind. They show that English-speakers can be very creative as they describe the world around them."
Sokolowski said words like "mash-up" have become a part of everyday speech with new technology.
"Whether it's a politician contradicting him or herself with excerpts from different speeches shown in quick succession or Danger Mouse's Grey Album, mixing Jay-Z with the Beatles, we've come to expect combined and rearranged elements that bring new perspectives and new creativity to our culture with mash-ups," said Sokolowski in a news release. "It's a recent phenomenon, made possible with digital editing, and it has a fun and descriptive name."
