Alice: Hello! I’m Alice and this is 6 Minute English…. I’m joined today by
Rob. Hi Rob.
Rob: Hello Alice.
Alice: Today we’re talking about some of the new words which have entered
the English language recently.
Rob: These are words which have been added to the Oxford Dictionary of
English this year.
Alice: There are quite a few but we thought we’d pick some which you might
enjoy using. But first – a question – Rob can you guess how many new
words or phrases were added in this latest edition? Is it: 100, 2,000 or
10,000.
Rob: I would think that there are thousands of new words every year but not
all of them are added to the dictionary. Let me have a think about it.
Alice: I’ll let you know at the end of the programme, but first let’s hear from
Catherine Sommes from the Oxford English Dictionary talking about
how they choose which new words will make it into the new edition.
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2010
Page 2 of 5
Extract 1:
What we can do – we’ve got software tools that actually show how words are being used,
how widely they’re being used, so it’s not just a question of numbers, it’s a question of
different places it’s being used so everywhere from magazines, to newspapers to
chatrooms.
Alice: So the company have software tools which are able to monitor new
words, how and when they are used.
Rob: Catherine Sommes says it’s not just a question of numbers – they
don’t just measure how often a new word is used
Alice: And she uses that phrase again. It’s a question of different places –
they also look at the different places where the word is used – for
example she says in magazines, newspapers and chatrooms.
Rob: So a word must be used in a variety of places.
Alice: That’s right. In order to make it into the dictionary it can’t just be
jargon – words which are specific to particular fields of interest.
Many of the new words this year come from social networking. Here’s
Catherine Sommes again to explain:
Extract 2
Social networking as well is so huge – so we’re getting words in the dictionary now like
de-friend, or un-friend which means take somebody off your friend list on a social
networking site such as Facebook. We’re seeing lots of words like that come into the
language now.
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2010
Page 3 of 5
Alice: Rob have you heard the words ‘de-friend’, or ‘un-friend’?
Rob: I’ve never used them myself but I know what they mean!
Alice: If you remove someone from your friend list on social
networking sites you might de-friend them, or un-friend them. It’s
easy to make a new word just using the prefix de- and un- but it does
sound a bit clumsy!
Rob: How about blogging?
Alice: Blogging has been in the dictionary for a while – but what about
micro-blogging? That’s a blog which is really small – it could just be
a sentence, a quick video-link or an image.
Rob: Now, Alice, Do you know what a dictionary attack is?
Alice: No.
Rob: It’s an attempt to find out your secret computer password by trying
an enormous number of words which might unlock it.
Alice: That sounds nasty! And so do some of the new words and phrases
which come from talking about the problems in the world’s economy.
Can you explain what toxic debt is Rob?
Rob: I’ll try! It’s the phrase used to describe a class of assets which were
once valuable – mortgages or financial products – which are now
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2010
Page 4 of 5
worthless.
Alice: Pretty good! A toxic debt can be worthless or at least have a reduced
value which is hard to find out. Here’s another one we’ve heard quite
a lot over the last couple of years. Quantitative easing. That’s when
governments put new money into the national money supply to ease
pressure on the economy.
Shall we have something more entertaining? My favourite new word is
this one:
Extract 3: Vuvuzela
Rob: Aha – that’s probably what the year 2010 will be remembered for. The
hum of the vuvuzela at the Football World Cup in South Africa.
Alice: So Rob have you thought about the answer to my question at the
beginning of the programme. How many new words do you think were
added to the dictionary this year?
Was it 100, 2000, or 10,000?
Rob: I think 100 is too little, and 10,000 is too many. So I’m going for 2000.
Alice: Well done! It’s actually slightly more than 2000 new words and
phrases in this year’s edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Shall we hear some of them again?
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2010
Page 5 of 5
Rob: Yes of course. And here’s some of the other language we heard in the
programme:
edition
software-tools
a question of
chatrooms
jargon
social networking
de-friend, un-friend
micro-blogging
dictionary attack
toxic debt
quantitative easing
vuvuzela
And we’ve got time to listen to Catherine Sommes from the Oxford
Dictionary of English talking about the 2010 edition again:
Extracts 1 and 2 (repeated)
Alice: Well that’s all we’ve got time for today. Thanks for joining us and see
you next time. Bye!
