Some of These New Oxford Dictionary Terms Make Me Feel Pretty Out of Touch

Hey, Oxford. Glad you could make it. But I’m sorry, I invited you here under false pretenses. This isn’t a cat cafe, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. But I want to talk about those words you just added today. All your buddies are here: Merriam-Webster, Collins. Even Dictionary.com is here and you know how hard it is to pull them away from work. Can we talk about those words? Okay.

For starters: social justice warrior? Really? I mean, okay, sure, your definition is pretty ironic: (informal, derogatory) a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views. “How dare they,” I can hear you saying. That’s fine. And I guess we can all agree that anyone who uses that term unironically is… well, you know.

Which brings me to the next term: fatberg. Fatberg?! Really? According to you, it’s a “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.” I get the wordplay–iceberg, fatberg–but… was there really a need for this? Do people run into fatbergs on a daily basis, so much so that they need a portmanteau to cover it? What are kids even doing these days? Oh, pro tip: don’t image search that.

What’s that, Collins? Yeah. Yeah, you have a good point. Awesomesauce is pretty old. Kids have been saying that for years now. Same goes for its buddy weak sauce.

But Dictionary.com brings up a good point. After you added mansplaining not too long ago, you went ahead and added manspreading. At least now we have a dictionary definition to throw at jerks on the subway as we glower over their sitting forms taking up two seats seriouslysircanyounot–*ahem*. Speaking of great new dictionary terms to point people to: microaggression. That’ll definitely come in handy.

Also, kudos on adding Mx. as a title for gender non-conforming people. And my Twitter-addicted self is super glad to see rando made the list. Just lovely.

I guess we’re not worried about these words per se. You’ve just made a lot of interesting choices. Didn’t realize Brexit and Grexit were a common thing–then again, I don’t really live in the UK or Greece, so I don’t talk about leaving the EU so much.

Okay, fine. Go ahead and run along, Oxford. But one more thing: fatberg?! I mean really, come on, where do people even run into that ugh gross.

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You can check out the full list of added terms over at Yahoo. Make sure you grab some food first, lest you get hangry.

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