Vocabulary Lessons: Squee

This month's lessons are dedicated to the words recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Today's word is squee.

It's an Internet-heavy word, meant to indicate excitement and cuteness.

It can be an interjection, like a squeal ("Did you see that puppy?! Squee!"), a verb ("I squeed with anticipation while I waited for One Directions to take the stage,"), or a noun ("She let out a squee when she opened her present").

Oxford suggests that the word has origins in the '90s and is derived from the word "squeal."

Additional Resources 
Buzzworthy words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online – squee!, Oxford Dictionaries
Squee, Oxford dictionaries

Vocabulary Lesson: Buzzworthy

This month's lessons are dedicated to the words recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Today's word is buzzworthy.

The word is an adjective, and used to describe or quantify whether or not an idea or thing has the qualities of being buzzworthiness. It's not correct to define a word with its root, so here's the dictionary definition:

likely to arouse the interest and attention of the public, either by media coverage or word of mouth

The blog Buzzfeed operated entirely on this concept. Generally speaking, viral videos and cultural hot topics are buzzworthy.

It's sort of a silly word, and I think it will be outdated in a few years, so be careful how you use it.

Additional Resources 
Buzzworthy words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online – squee!, Oxford Dictionaries
Buzzworthy, Oxford definition

Vocabulary Lesson: Selfie

This month's lessons are about the words recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Today's word is selfie. It's short-hand for "self-portrait." The term is generally reserved for instances when the photograph is taken with a smartphone or similar device, and the photo is uploaded online, usually to a social media site, like Facebook or Instagram. The word can be used in a sentence or as a hashtag.

Its inclusion in the dictionary has an interesting backstory. From the Dictionary's blog:

and:

This colloquial term for a photographic self-portrait has thus far appeared primarily in social media contexts. In fact, we see more evidence for it on the Oxford Twitter Corpus than in the much larger Oxford English Corpus or the Nexis database. However, selfie attracted mainstream notice when it appeared in US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to a humorous Tumblr dedicated to an image of her texting. Many commentators doubted that she had penned the riposte herself, saying such a Facebook-generation word was unlikely to be in her vocabulary.

Thanks, Hill!


Additional Resources 
Buzzworthy words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online – squee!, Oxford Dictionaries
Words on the radar: June 2012, Oxford Dictionary
Selfie, Oxford Dictionary

Vocabulary Lesson: vom

This month's lessons are dedicated to the words recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Today's word is vom.

It's gross. It's a shortened version of vomit.

Generally, it's used to end a sentence (or is its own one-word sentence) to show displeasure. For example, "And then the weird guy started clipping his toenails on the train! Vom." (Usually, the circumstances are less nauseating.)

Oxford defines the word as an informal verb or noun for vomit.

Don't say it out loud. It's silly.



Additional Resources 
Buzzworthy words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online – squee!, Oxford Dictionaries
Vom, Oxford Dictionary

Vocabulary Lesson: FOMO

October's lessons are strictly vocabulary. We'll explore some of the new words added to the Oxford dictionary.

Today's "word" is an acronym: FOMO.

I have to concede that I didn't know this word before. It's perfect for me! FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. Oxford has chosen this as its definition:

anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.

Here is an example of the acronym in a sentence, via Urban Dictionary:

Even though he was exhausted, John's fomo got the best of him and he went to the party.

In the event that you speak this term, it is pronounced "Foe moe." It rhymes with bobo.

Additional Resources 
Buzzworthy words added to Oxford Dictionaries Online – squee!, Oxford Dictionaries
FOMO, Oxford Dictionary
FOMO, Urban Dictionary


The GQ Guide to Getting Over #FOMO, GQ