Words for our times - Emphasis

Words for our times Words for our times The latest version of the Collins English Dictionary has just been published, with some interesting new additions, including iPlayer, mankini (after Borats legendary garment), and Twitter. The words that officially enter the language no doubt reflect the influences and preoccupations of our times. So, after looking over this years new entries, I couldnt help but wonder: is the future of English completely ruled by television and technology? Well, not completely. The explosion of the social media trend definitely makes its mark: from the names of key sites to phonetically spelled words and phrases (surely more likely to be instant messaged than looked up) such as heh heh, mwah and soz. However, our cultures growing bent towards greener living is also represented, so we find out that an ecolodge is a sustainable hotel, and to be carborexic is to be a person obsessed with reducing their carbon footprint. Our fascination with celebrity-inspired trends combines neatly with the reality of living in the current economy in the word frugalista: a person who tries to stay fashionably dressed on a budget. This does beg the question: does anyone actually use these words? Or have the writers at Collins just been having fun making them up? Still, the question of technologys power over the way we write (and speak) could be greater than we realise. As a society increasingly melded to our PCs, iPhones and MacBooks, our use of grammar could come to be ruled by Microsoft Words occasionally erratic placing of squiggly lines. But thats another story