Cover via AmazonPublished: Mon 28th Feb, 2011Scrabble addicts will now have a whole new arsenal of words to choose from after the Oxford English Dictionary has added a bunch of techie favourites.
New words added to the dictionary include: 'clickjacking', 'scareware' (fake anti-virus alert scams) and 'sexting' as well as 'feature phone' and commonly used text-speak acronym 'tbh', according to Techwatch.
Bloggable is apparently defined as "suitable or sufficiently interesting as a topic for a blog," while c'yber-bully', 'bandwidth' and 'trackpad' also get a place in the linguistic bible.
While it used to take ages to get a word into the dictionary as they caught on via word-of-mouth in playgrounds and offices alike, now social media and the internet as a whole has meant new terms spread like wildfire and become more quickly accepted.
Other non-techie terms have also made the grade such as ‘tanorexia' (being addicted to getting a tan) as well as Borat's ‘mankini'.
Going back to the more serious sentry of ‘cyber-bully,' it seems the problem of bullying online as well as the term itself has become more official, as the police will now send warning letters to the parents of children found to be bullying others on Facebook, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The letters will apparently warn the ‘cyber-bullies' they are breaking the law and could therefore be prosecuted, aiming to alert web tormentors of the seriousness of their actions and stop them becoming criminals.
A trial will reportedly begin in the Thames Valley where police will team up with teen volunteers to investigate and deal with reported of bullying on the social network.
PC Dave Thomas told the newspaper: "By alerting their parents to the problem, we are aiming to nip the problem in the bud and prevent it becoming something more serious. Social networkers, whatever their age, often don't think about what they are writing in the same way they would think about what they write in a letter or an email. If we have to investigate Facebook messages as harassment or public order offences and the young person gets charged, it could seriously affect their future."
"While we want them to realise how serious the matter is, we also want to avoid that and keep young people out of the criminal justice system if possible," he reportedly added.
If the trial goes well, the initiative could apparently be rolled out across South East England from May.
Taken from Hexus.net; source article is below:
Oxford English Dictionary embraces techie terms
