'Twerking' in Oxford Dictionary Today; 'Selfie' and 'Srsly' Also Added

By Brittney R. Villalva, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, August 28, 2013

In an expedited effort to keep "buzzworthy" words up-to-date in their online dictionary, Oxford has introduced that addition of new words, which include "twerking" and "selfie."

While Miley Cyrus may have given the whole world a visual demonstration of what it means to "twerk" during MTV's 2013 Video Music Awards, the Oxford dictionary still believes it fit to include a wordier definition of the dance move in its online dictionary. Somewhere between the words "tweed" and "twerp," "twerk" has rushed its way into the online reference, an Oxford blog announced Wednesday, along with other popular Internet phrases.

Those who are not up-to-date on the Internet's current trends can rest at ease because Oxford, despite its image, is in the loop. If a person, for instance, was browsing around the Internet on their "phablet" and came across a "selfie" of Miley Cyrus practicing her "twerking" and was mortified enough to feel they needed a "digital detox," they could look up what all of those words mean through Oxford's online dictionary.

There they will discover not only the definition to those words listed above, but to other useful words as well such as "srsly" and "emoji."

While the new additions may seem like a lot, online users should be too surprised. According to Angus Stevenson of Oxford Dictionaries Online, an estimated 150 million words are added to the Oxford database each month.

"New words, senses, and phrases are added to Oxford Dictionaries Online when we have gathered enough independent evidence from a range of sources to be confident that they have widespread currency in English," Stevenson explained in the Oxford blog. "Publishing online allows us to make the results of our research available more quickly than ever before."

From those millions of words in the database however, only a select few are actually added to the online dictionary, the term "twerking" being one of them this month. This power to monitor the ever changing English language is fascinating, to say the least.

"We use this database to track and verify new and emerging words and senses on a daily basis," Stevenson noted. "On average, we add approximately 1,000 new entries to Oxford Dictionaries Online every year, and this quarter's update highlights some fascinating developments in the English language."