YOLO — Why it needs to be in the dictionary

A dictionary is a book containing words in common usage, and every year we go through the same tired shock of people who can’t bear that some recently invented word has been added. Every year, without fail, we get a whole load of guff about how standards have been eroded to the point of collapse, and how the English language is a sick and dying tongue being dragged through the gutter.

Really? Every bloody year the same codswallop comes venting from the mouths of people who care not for how languages work or even know the definition of a dictionary (look it up somewhere — no clues), but instead care more about their own snobby views regarding how people speak and what is written.

In the first measure, a dictionary is (and I am going to say the first sentence of this piece again here, albeit with this addendum inserted and that prefix back there) a book containing words in common usage. Those words are being included because they are being used. Let us take, for example, YOLO, possibly the most hated of these words. Where does it come from? Well, Carpe Diem (seize the day) is latin so that puts it back a couple of millennia, while the translation ‘you only live once’ (obviously not an exact translation of the words but certainly and perfectly of the sentiment) is about 100 years old. YOLO (I tried writing it not in capitals but it looked wrong), is at least three years old now. It hasn’t died out, and it is still being used. It’s an acronym. Are you as disgusted about YOLO as you are about word WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) or the word NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)? Do these words cause your stomach to turn and for you to get all riled up? It couldn’t just be that YOLO is generational could it? Or that it sounds, admittedly, like a stupid brand name for a child’s toy? I’ll admit it, I hate the word myself, but do I think it should be in the dictionary? Yes. Because people are using it all the time and as grating as it is, this is exactly the sort of word that needs to be in the dictionary.

Imagine only having the words you approved of in the dictionary? Or the removal of all abbreviations and acronyms? It would be a thinner book (cheaper too one might imagine) so that’s a win, but it would be the very death of the English language which all the ‘Language of Shakespeare’ mob are railing against. English is the lingua franca of the entire world due to its ease of use and though it is verily a language hard to master, it’s relatively simple to get the basics. Chinese and Spanish may have more speakers, but they are in the former instance far harder to write and in the latter far harder to speak. English has none of the gender issues that are the curse of many a spoiled GCSE modern languages grade. It is simple to use and more importantly, it is so easy to invent a new word.

I shall do that now in fact. Glumbo. There you go. The little red line has appeared beneath glumbo there, but I will have the computer learn it. What does it mean? It refers to the mess that you get when you put a hen’s egg in a washing machine. Glumbo. Expect it to be added. Now, I don’t have to worry about creating a new symbol for everyone to learn how to write, nor do I have to assign it a gender and I can start using it in every day conversation and just tell people what it means later.

Now, going back to the Bard himself, he used to do this all the time! Blanket, buzzer, gossip, luggage, summit, rant (how fitting), obscene… there are a lot more too. It has been claimed that he invented over 1700 words. Do you have a problem with those being added to the dictionary? In fact, consider how crap this would have made his plays if you were new in town and hadn’t quite got the Avon/London slang down yet? An audience member visiting the Globe from Oxford would probably have heard Cassius from Julius Caesar sound like this: “Ye gods! It doth amaze a man of such feeble temper should so get the start of the afdasfdhogjid world and bear the palm alone.” It would have been nonsense.

But I digress. Apart from my preplanned pop at Shakespeare there, the point that I’m attempting to convey is that English is a wonderful language for making up words. And should one of those words take, and be embraced by a sizeable subset of users, why should it not be included in a dictionary? If we were not as flexible we’d all still be walking around saying ‘forsooth’ and ‘hey nonny nonny’ all the damn time. It would be unbearable.

Celebrate the inventiveness and flexibility of English. Celebrate its diversity and ingenuity. It is at once a glorious and a common tongue and it is the language that the world chooses to speak when it wants to be understood. Do not punish words like YOLO. Or Cray. Or Amazeballs. They may seem silly, annoying and they may not last long, but they may last for the rest of your lifetime or more, and they are the product of an active, humorous and ever evolving language. What an amazeballs thing.

Finally though, consider this. The word Brabble has been cut from the dictionary for a little while now. It is a word that the English have been employing for over five hundred years. And you probably (unless you’re among the cleverer people here) don’t know what it means at all, do you? And yet you’ve probably heard someone say ‘tech-savvy’ to you in the last week. Which one makes more sense to have in a book about the words in common usage?

Now, having had a lot of fun with English in this article (verily), I’m off to buy a dozen eggs. You’ll find me by the washing machine examining my glumbo and brabbling about you all. YOLO!