As the word turns: 'F-bomb' makes Merriam-Webster's
NEW YORK - It's about freakin' time. The term F-bomb first surfaced in newspapers more than 20 years ago but only landed in the mainstream Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary this week, along with sexting, flexitarian, obesogenic, energy drink, and life coach.
NEW YORK - It's about freakin' time.
The term F-bomb first surfaced in newspapers more than 20 years ago but only landed in the mainstream Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary this week, along with sexting, flexitarian, obesogenic, energy drink, and life coach.
In all, the company picks about 100 additions for the 114-year-old dictionary's annual update, gathering evidence of usage over several years from sources ranging from media to the labels of beer bottles and frozen food.
So who's responsible for lobbing F-bomb far and wide? Kory Stamper, an associate editor for Merriam-Webster, said that she and her fellow word spies at the Massachusetts company traced the word back to 1988, in a Newsday story that had Mets catcher Gary Carter talking about how he had given them up, along with other profanities.
But the word didn't really take off until the late '90's, after basketball coach Bobby Knight went heavy on the F-bombs during a locker-room tirade.
"We saw another huge spike after Dick Cheney dropped an F-bomb in the Senate in 2004," and again in 2010 when Vice President Biden did the same thing in the same place, Stamper said.
"It's a word that is very visually evocative. It's not just the F-word. It's F-bomb. You know that it's going to cause a lot of consternation and possible damage," she said.
Many online dictionary and reference sites already list F-bomb and other entries Merriam-Webster is only now putting into print. A competitor, Oxford University Press, has F-bomb under consideration for a future update of its New Oxford American Dictionary, but beat Merriam-Webster to print on a couple of other newcomers: mash-up, added to the Oxford book in 2005, and cloud computing, included in 2010.
No worries, Stamper said. The dictionary biz isn't a race.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate gets a cover-to-cover overhaul every decade or so in addition to yearly upgrades. The Springfield, Mass.-based company also picks a defining word of each year closer to Thanksgiving. Among the company's other additions this year, including online at Merriam-Webster.com, and various apps:
The Oprah-inspired aha moment; the Stephen King-popularized earworm, as in that truly torturous tune you can't get out of your head; and man cave, brain cramp and bucket list.
The first reference found by the good people at Merriam-Webster for aha moment dates to 1939 in a psychology book. Its use was sporadic until the '90's, when Oprah Winfrey began using it on her no-longer-on-the-air TV show.
"This is a list of really descriptive and evocative, fun words. Some years, not so fun. Some years it's a lot of science words. Some years it's a lot of words around really heavy topics," Stamper said.
