Merriam-Webster has recently unveiled a set of new words that will be included in the 2006 update of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. Among them are technocreations such as mouse potato and ringtone; terms that originated in advertising, such as supersize; and already-dated slang terms such as drama queen.
Do I really need this junk in my dictionary? Isn’t it easy enough to absorb the meaning of these terms just by watching Cingular commercials and old episodes of Will & Grace?
Personally, I only use the dictionary to look up words like chaulmoogra, muntin, or weltanschauung. I can figure out unibrow for myself.
What do you think?