Ever since the dawn of instant messaging and texting as frequent sources of communication, people have been shortening or just plain making up words to get their message across faster. These words have apparently become so popular with consistent public use that the Oxford Dictionary has decided to include a variety of them in their online site.
For those who grew up assuming there has always been text messaging or IM services, these words may come so naturally to you they may have been your first; however, these zany words have been brought into society with forced use to fit in and thus become worldwide lingo.
Of course the first wacky word to plague the communication field is “lol” or “lolz”, which has been defined as “fun, laughter, or amusement” with an origin of the 1990s. It says nothing about “laugh out loud”, which is it’s supposed originally meaning, and has now become its own word. Other words include: mwahahaha, ridic, douche (not the medical kind), OH (Twitter slang: overheard), tweeps, and vajazzle (just look it up).
There are also words that probably should have been included in this well-spring of knowledge like “inbox”, seeing as email has been around for ages now and that being such a prevalent and real word. “Genius” is another word that has just been recently added, which ponders the question of what have these Oxford moderators been doing for the past 20 years. They are at least keeping up to date with some words such as: video chat, UX (user experience), Wikipedian, hackathon, photobomb, and ripped (the workout version).
There are many other words out there, so if you find any worth a lol, feel free to comment and let us know.
