Websters updates our vocabularies
by Pete Cunningham
*As printed July 18, 2007 in The Homer Index

Last week Miriam-Webster announced its annual updates. A list of 100 words now considered by them and, hence most conventional standards, as proper English. With any luck, spellcheck software companies, Milton Bradley (the makers of Scrabble), English teachers across America, and Sharon Warner will quickly follow suit and update what is acceptable to them. In case you haven’t read up on the newly added words, I thought I’d give you a little run-down of what can now be considered “English.” Put away the redpen Sharon, this one’s going to be a smackdown, which Webster’s now recognizes as the proper way of recognizing a confrontation between rivals and competitors.

To the aforementioned Scrabble players you’ll be happy to know that many of these words are quite ginormous. The combination of gigantic and enormous, if put on the on the outermost edges of the board, could potentially score you 135 points with two triple words and a double letter mixed in there.

If you really want to supersize your score, spell what Webster’s now recognizes as a considerable increase in size and score 198 points. Scoring both of those would truly be the perfect storm (a situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors) of board games.

Our amigos to the south will be happy to know that Webster’s now recognizes a telenovella as a soap opera produced in and televised in Latin-American countries. Isn’t that what soccer’s for?

My dad warns me that talking about soccer will make people stop reading faster than avian influenza, a highly variable mild to fulminant influenza of birds. If my writings did cause such a fallout, they may quickly become gray literature. That is written material that is not published commercially, or is not accessible.

Many of these words have long been in our vocabularies, it has just taken Webster’s awhile to come around. Take, for example, speed dating, the event at which each participant converses individually with all the prospective partners for a few minutes in order to select those with whom dates are desired. Despite Webster’s addition, most will continue to refer to such an event in its more commonly known term, college.

Soduku, a puzzle in which several numbers are to be filled into a grid of squares, is another commonly used word which is now in the dictionary. It would have been included sooner, but every time the people at Webster’s tried to define it they would just stare aimlessly at a half-written page until eventually they became frustrated and gave up.

The main purpose of this article is not just to inform everyone of the evolution of the English language. No, the true reason for this ridiculously grammatically correct rant is to issue an apology.

If there is any way that Khadejha Jenkins of Tates Creek Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky, ever reads this, I want her to know that I am sorry. I’m sorry that when I was substitute teaching in her class I was so quick to judge, and errantly so. You see, I marked Khadeja down a whole grade on her Greek mythology paper when she wrote that “Mt. Olympus was crunk.”

Of course, thanks to Webster’s, I now know that what I once thought was a crude attempt at describing the fictional home of the gods was actually an outside the box comparison alikening their actions to those of patrons at a southern-style rap concert. Such a comparison is insightful. Genius. Why, it’s downright crunk.

To you, Ms. Jenkins, I bid a sincere apology and would like to supersize your grade to an A+.