On the other hand - McJob? Frankenfood? Is this in current usage enough for dictionary inclusion?
SPRINGFIELD, Mass., June 30 — A former dot-commer working a McJob was listening to some headbangers while laying out the last of his dead presidents for longnecks and some less than heart-healthy Frankenfood. Confused? Consult the new edition of the Collegiate Dictionary from the folks at Merriam-Webster.
ONCE A DECADE, Merriam-Webster updates its best-selling dictionary. The 11th edition, available in bookstores Tuesday, includes 10,000 new words and more than 100,000 new meanings and revisions among its 225,000 definitions.
Pop culture remains a vibrant source of new words, with such additions as “headbanger” (defined as both a hard rock musician and a fan), “dead presidents” (paper currency), “McJob” (low paying and dead-end work), “Frankenfood” (genetically engineered food) and “longneck” (beer served in a bottle with a long neck).
Some of the new words have been a longtime getting the widespread assimilation that merits a move from the unabridged dictionary to the Collegiate. The citation file on the Yiddish exclamation “oy,” for example, dates back to the immigrant waves of the 1890s. Others have zoomed into the language with the speed of the Internet.
Oy, get back to your McJob - full story here
