韦氏词典2007新词表出炉
来源：CRIENGLISH.comNew dictionary includes 'ginormous'
韦氏词典2007新词表出炉
It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths(1) at Merriam-Webster. Along with embracing the adjective that combines \"gigantic\" and \"enormous,\" the dictionary publishers also got into Bollywood, sudoku and speed dating.
But their interest in India's motion-picture industry, number puzzles and trendy ways to meet people was all meant for a higher cause: updating the company's collegiate dictionary, which goes on sale this fall with about 100 newly added words.
As always, the yearly list gives meaning to the latest lingo in pop culture, technology and current events.
There's \"crunk(2),\" a style of Southern rap music; the abbreviated \"DVR,\" for digital video recorder; and \"IED,\" shorthand for the improvised explosive devices that have become common in the war in Iraq.
If it sounds as though Merriam-Webster is dropping its buttoned-down(3) image with too much talk of \"smackdowns\" (contests in entertainment wrestling) and \"telenovelas\" (Latin-American soap operas), consider it also is adding \"gray literature\" (hard-to-get written material) and \"microgreen\" (a shoot(4) of a standard salad plant.)。
No matter how odd some of the words might seem, the dictionary editors say each has the promise of sticking around in the American vocabulary.
\"There will be linguistic conservatives(5) who will turn their nose up at(6) a word like `ginormous,'\" said John Morse, Merriam-Webster's president. \"But it's become a part of our language. It's used by professional writers in mainstream publications. It clearly has staying power.\"
One of those naysayers(7) is Allan Metcalf, a professor of English at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., and the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society.
\"A new word that stands out and is ostentatious(8) is going to sink like a lead balloon,\" he said. \"It might enjoy a fringe(9) existence.\"
But Merriam-Webster traces ginormous back to 1948, when it appeared in a British dictionary of military slang. And in the past several years, its use has become, well, ginormous.
Visitors to the dictionary publisher's Web site picked \"ginormous\" as their favorite word that's not in the dictionary in 2005, and Merriam-Webster editors have spotted it in countless newspaper and magazine articles since 2000.
That's essentially the criteria(10) for making it into the collegiate dictionary — if a word shows up often enough in mainstream writing, the editors consider defining it.
But as editor Jim Lowe puts it: \"Nobody has to use `ginormous' if they don't want to.\"
1. wordsmith：语言大师
2. crunk：旷课乐，Crunk=Crazy+Drunk。Crunk Music在国内经常被翻译成旷课音乐，由南部说唱衍生而来，更有舞曲的风格。Crunk音乐的真正全球化要得益于Usher的《Yeah！》的惊人成功，这首歌使全世界刮起了一阵Crunk风暴，从街头到舞厅，从流行歌手到说唱艺人都加入到这种新的音乐风格中。
3. buttoned-down：传统的
4. shoot：Shoot一词在植物学上的翻译一直存在争议，很多翻译中把它翻译成苗、茎、茎干或枝务和地上部等。
5. conservative：保守派
6. turn one’s nose up at：对…嗤之以鼻
7. naysayer：反对者
8. ostentatious：卖弄的
9. fringe：边缘的
10. criteria：标准
对于《韦氏才词典》的语言大师们来说，这是一个“ginormous（无比巨大的）”的年头。被他们纳入新词典的除了gigantic（巨大的）和enormous（极大的）的合成词，还包括Bollywood，sudoku和speed dating。
为了丰富今年秋天即将发行的《韦氏大辞典》，他们加入了印度影视产业宝莱坞、数字解谜游戏数独和流行的闪电约会等约100个新词。
如往年一样，今年的新词列表同样为最新流行文化、科技、事件词汇赋予正式解释。
新词中还包括一种南方说唱音乐风格Crunk（旷课乐）；数字录像机的缩写DVR；在伊拉克战争中被广泛使用的简易爆炸装置的缩写IED。
如果你认为太多口语如smackdowns（娱乐摔跤比赛）和telenovelas（拉丁美肥皂剧）会破坏韦氏的传统形象，不妨看看其他的新词：gray literature（不容易搞到的文献）和microgreen（一种高级沙拉植物枝茎）。
也许有些词看起来很怪异，但是字典编辑们说每个词都没有超出美国词汇表。
韦氏主席John Morse 说：“有些语言学保守派会对ginormous嗤之以鼻，但它们早已成为我们语言的一部分。主流出版物的专业作家都使用它们。显然它们有很强的生命力。”
杰克逊维尔麦克姆里学院英语教授、美国方言协会执行秘书Allan Metcalf就是反对者之一。
他说：“一个新词突然出现，火爆一阵子，但是最终无声无息地消失。它们仅是一种边缘存在。”
但是韦氏却将ginormous的用法追溯到1948年，当时它作为军事俚语出现在一本英国字典中。并且在之后的几年中，它也得到，怎么说呢，ginormous(无比巨大的)使用。
韦氏网站的浏览者推选2005年字典中还未出现过的ginormous为最受欢迎词汇。2000年以后，韦氏编辑们也在无数报纸和杂志文章中见过这个词。
这也是编著词典的标准：只要一个词频繁出现在主流作品中，编辑就要考虑为它定义。
但是编辑Jim Lowe说：“如果你不想用ginormous这个词，也没人逼你。”
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