Learning New Words with the Urban Dictionary
by Ivana Recmanova
As an experienced English learner, you can take advantage of so-called monolingual dictionaries. These are dictionaries written in one language that give you definitions of words, rather than translations to other languages. These dictionaries exist as books, which means you can carry them around easily. The downside is, as with any informative book, that the information in it will be out of date at some point. This is especially true for languages that change constantly.
And not only that — dictionaries are also very academic. They have to be precise because they are used by professionals and language learners. This is where the popular online dictionaries come in. Unlike academic dictionaries, they are curated by a massive amount of laypeople whose only qualification is that they are native speakers. When they hear or use a new word, they put it on the website and provide their own explanation. What does it look like in comparison to academic dictionaries, then?
Let’s consider the word “pig”. Imagine that someone — a child or an alien — asked you what the word “pig” means. Obviously, you may explain it to them yourself, but you may also show them a dictionary definition because you feel it is a more authoritative source.
Let’s have a look at what the Oxford Dictionary says:
An omnivorous domesticated hoofed mammal with sparse bristly hair and a flat snout for rooting in the soil, kept for its meat.
That is… very deep. An excellent definition. However, if you presented it to that child or alien, do you think they would understand what a pig is? Chances are that they wouldn’t know what the words “omnivorous”, “domesticated”, “mammal”, and so forth mean, either.
Now, let’s have a look at Urban Dictionary:
Pink thing that rolls around in mud and eventually becomes a ham sandwich.
That sounds more understandable, right? On the other hand, someone could argue that it’s not a precise definition. Indeed, not all pigs are pink, only certain breeds. Pigs are not things either; they are living beings. Some people’s skin is also pink and they could roll around in mud and become a sandwich (not that we would encourage that).
Let’s examine another word: hypoavocademia. Surprisingly, you will not find it in the Oxford Dictionary. However, Urban Dictionary contains the word, defined as:
Low avocado presence in blood. Occurs mostly within the white population of California, and various other hipster paradises. Side effects include; anger, crankiness, a general sense of anxiety, and starvation.
Not only that, it also provides hyperlinks to the words “low”, “avocado”, and “hipster”, so if you don’t understand these words (or just want to have fun with their definitions), you can hover over these and definitions will appear immediately. Just like the Oxford Dictionary, Urban Dictionary usually supplements its definitions with italicized sentences that include the words in question.
But unlike in a printed dictionary, you will find hashtags under the definitions in Urban Dictionary. These hashtags, popularised by Twitter, connect other entries that are tagged with the same hashtag. This is especially useful if you look for multiple words that fall into a specific category.
If you want to add a definition on Urban Dictionary, all you need to do is register. Because this process is easy, it is clear anyone can do it and submit anything — including misleading, offensive or otherwise inappropriate definitions. There are tools on the website to eliminate these contributions though — you can give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down by clicking on the appropriate icon beside each definition there. Unfortunately, because these approvals are given by laypeople as well, a good definition will not necessarily get the most thumbs up. Likewise, bad definitions will probably not get the most thumbs down.
So, what do we make of these disparities among definitions? Always ask yourself: Who wrote this definition? How old is it? Does it make sense with regards to the context? If you can make use of all of these resources, you are on a path to English mastery.
