Oxford English Dictionary Added Over A Dozen LGBT Words In 2022 - Star Observer - Dictionary

Image: Unsplash/Norbu Gyachung

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds new words into the dictionary that were used in order to keep up with the ever-evolving English language. For 2022, they added several new LGBTQ entries used by the queer community.

One of the words is the very acronym LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) was added, along with ‘tea house’ which is a term used to describe “a public toilet used by men to engage in or solicit sexual activity with other men.”

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Other new queer words added to the dictionary include:

Anti-gay and Anti-homosexual

2022 saw a rise in violence and restrictions against the LGBTQ community, so it’s no surprise that these two were among some of the ‘anti’ words added to the dictionary.

Bakla

A word borrowed from Tagalog, OED defines this as “a person registered as male at birth who identifies with or presents a feminine gender expression, typically through behaviours, occupations, modes of dress, etc., that are culturally associated with femininity.” It’s often seen as a derogatory word in Philippine English.

After the definition, OED notes that “Bakla encompasses a wide range of gendered characteristics and practices that do not correspond to heteronormative ideas of masculinity. It can often, but not always, denote homosexuality, although the term is increasingly being used as a synonym for Western terms relating to sexual orientation, such as gay and homosexual.”

Brotherboy and Sistergirl

Two new terms that bring in Aboriginal identities. OED defines brotherboy as “a person registered as female at birth who identifies with or presents a masculine gender expression, typically through behaviours, occupations, modes of dress, etc., that are culturally associated with masculinity,” while sistergirl means assigned male at birth but presents in ways seen as feminine.

Enby

A colloquial term used for a non-binary person.

Gender-affirming, Gender critical, Gender expression and Gender presentation

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Four sub-entries for the noun ‘gender’ and while three cover the topic in a positive light when it comes to gender, gender critical has two definitions with one being “critical of the concept of gender identity, or the belief that gender identity outweighs or is more significant than biological sex. In sense (b), typically distinguishing between gender (as something culturally or biologically defined) and gender identity (considered an innate individual sense).”

Multisexual

The OED defines this new word as “characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to, or sexual activity with, people of different sexes or gender identities; (now) spec. having any of various sexual orientations of this type, such as bisexual, pansexual, or polysexual.” The OED evens cites a tweet by @nyphren to further explain the new word.

i don’t identify as bi but i’m grayasexual and when i do feel sexual attraction it’s to more than one gender so i usually say i’m multisexual. this way of thinking is harmful to both ALL aros, and to m-spec people, too.

— ren (@nyphren) January 11, 2018

Muxe

Pronounced as ‘moo-shay’, this Zapotec identity made it into the OED and is defined as “in Zapotec communities of southern Mexico: a person registered as male at birth who identifies with or presents a feminine gender expression, typically through behaviours, occupations, modes of dress, etc., that are culturally associated with femininity.”

Pangender

Pangender is defined different from pansexual and is “designating a non-binary person whose gender identity encompasses multiple genders, which may be experienced simultaneously or in a fluid, fluctuating manner; of or relating to a gender identity of this type.”

TERF

OED had noted some context for this word, noting that it was “originally used within the radical feminist movement.”

“Although the [one who coined the term in 2008] (a trans-inclusive feminist) has stated that the term was intended as a neutral description, TERF is now typically regarded as derogatory,” the OED states.

And TERF is defined as “a feminist whose advocacy of women’s rights excludes (or is thought to exclude) the rights of transgender women. Also more generally: a person whose views on gender identity are (or are considered) hostile to transgender people, or who opposes social and political policies designed to be inclusive of transgender people.”

The words ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ received new entries that centred around the bondage, domination meanings behind the words. Here’s hoping to more queer words and terms making their debut in 2023!

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‘Translate what I say, don’t add words’: Amit Shah to interpreter during public address in Karnataka - Scroll.in - Translation

Lagta Hai Translator Full Mood me hai. One more video of #AmitShah were wrongly translated in Kannada. #karnataka #bjp #madya pic.twitter.com/aZRaR9stUE

— Syed Aleem Ilahi (@AleemIlahi) December 30, 2022

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2022 Words of the Year - Santa Barbara Edhat - Dictionary

By the edhat staff

Esteemed dictionaries have revealed their top words of the year for 2022 and they are all over the place.

We can't make sense of a theme between them, but maybe you can!

Here's the top words of the year:

Gaslighting

Merriam-Webster has identified their word of the year as: Gaslighting.

Gaslighting is defined as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” The dictionary states they saw a 1740% increase in lookups for gaslighting, with high interest throughout the year.

The term comes from the title of a 1938 play and the movie based on that play, the plot of which involves a man attempting to make his wife believe that she is going insane. His mysterious activities in the attic cause the house’s gas lights to dim, but he insists to his wife that the lights are not dimming and that she can’t trust her own perceptions.

But in recent years, the meaning of gaslighting has been used to mean something simpler and broader similar to deception and manipulation, such as fake news, deepfake, and artificial intelligence.

"The idea of a deliberate conspiracy to mislead has made gaslighting useful in describing lies that are part of a larger plan. Unlike lying, which tends to be between individuals, and fraud, which tends to involve organizations, gaslighting applies in both personal and political contexts," the dictionary states.

gaslighting [ˈgas-ˌlī-tiŋ ] noun.
1. psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator

Woman

Dictionary.com has defined the 2022 Word of the Year as: Woman.

This year, searches for the word woman on Dictionary.com spiked significantly in relation to separate high-profile events.

"Our selection of woman as our 2022 Word of the Year reflects how the intersection of gender, identity, and language dominates the current cultural conversation and shapes much of our work as a dictionary," the website states.

During the height of the lookups for woman on Dictionary.com in 2022, searches for the word increased more than 1,400%. Subsequent spikes eventually resulted in double the typical annual search volume for the word.

Specific women also dominated the news cycle this year, the death of Queen Elizabeth II captured the world's attention. As did the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in the custody of the Iranian government’s so-called morality police, sparking outrage and a protest movement that has been primarily led by women. 

woman [ woom–uhn ] noun.
1. an adult female person.

Homer

The Cambridge Dictionary has announced "homer" as its word of the year.

The informal American English term for a home run in baseball has apparently left non-American players of Wordle feeling confused and frustrated. According to the U.K. dictionary, Wordle players flooded their website to try and understand its meaning. 

homer [ˈhoʊ.mɚ] noun.
1. short for home run : a point scored in baseball when you hit the ball, usually out of the playing field, and are able to run around all the bases at one time to the starting base

Goblin mode

The Oxford Dictionary has chosen the slang term of "goblin mode" as its word of the year.

‘Goblin mode’ – a slang term, often used in the expressions ‘in goblin mode’ or ‘to go goblin mode’ – is ‘a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.’

"Although first seen on Twitter in 2009, goblin mode went viral on social media in February 2022, quickly making its way into newspapers and magazines after being tweeted in a mocked-up headline. The term then rose in popularity over the months following as Covid lockdown restrictions eased in many countries and people ventured out of their homes more regularly. Seemingly, it captured the prevailing mood of individuals who rejected the idea of returning to ‘normal life’, or rebelled against the increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media," according to Oxford Dictionary.

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‘Translate what I say, don’t add words’: Amit Shah to interpreter during public address in Karnataka - Scroll.in - Translation

Lagta Hai Translator Full Mood me hai. One more video of #AmitShah were wrongly translated in Kannada. #karnataka #bjp #madya pic.twitter.com/aZRaR9stUE

— Syed Aleem Ilahi (@AleemIlahi) December 30, 2022

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How to Translate Foreign Languages With Hotkeys in Windows 10 & 11 - MUO - MakeUseOf - Translation

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How to Translate Foreign Languages With Hotkeys in Windows 10 & 11  MUO - MakeUseOf

What dictionaries have changed the definition of ‘woman’? | Opinion - Deseret News - Dictionary

This year I bought a strange holiday gift for my kids: I gave them dictionaries. More specifically, I gave them dictionaries that were published before the word “woman” was redefined by some dictionary publishers.

This fall, Cambridge University Press redefined woman to include not only “an adult female human being,” but also “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth (example, ‘Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.’).”

Wits quickly supplied additional definitions Cambridge should consider, such as, “duck: a shark who lives and identifies as a duck though they may have been said to have a different species at birth (example, ‘Blue is a duck who was assigned shark at birth.’).”

If we were in the water and someone yelled, “Duck, duck!” we’d turn around to look because ducks are no threat. If someone yelled, “Shark, shark!” we’d get out of the water as fast as possible because sharks are very much a threat. Redefining “duck” to include “shark” would be a corruption of language because it would not allow us to communicate what we actually mean, and also would obscure the potential threat sharks pose. At best the redefinition makes us incoherent; at worst, it results in our harm or death.

“Duck, duck, the pectoral-fin-having kind of duck!”

For women, the conceptual erasure of their material reality has come swiftly, even as their actual material reality so often remains the justification for their abuse. While certain legal fictions have been long accepted in society — for example, it’s unremarkable to call the guardians of an adopted child their mother and father even though they are not biologically related — newer legal fictions are not as innocuous.

Since 2010 in Great Britain, an individual can, under certain circumstances, receive a Gender Recognition Certificate that allows them to change the sex on their government documents. This is “a legal fiction” because the person’s material bodily sex has not changed; only the sex marker on their government documents has.

We know this is a legal fiction even under British law because the older sister of a male heir of a noble peerage (the UK’s system of ranks and titles) cannot use a Gender Recognition Certificate to claim that she is now the true heir because the certificate says she is male. 

The material, biological reality of her sex has not disappeared in actuality. Likewise a male heir cannot lose his noble title if he obtains a certificate that states he is female; his favored male sex can never be taken from him. The government reasoned that “by stating that where a peerage is concerned a transsexual person is considered in his or her birth gender we avoid anomalies of succession.”  

But those are anomalies that would disfavor men, causing them to lose out to women. Unfortunately, the government appears less interested in anomalies that are created by this legal fiction that disfavor women, causing them to lose out to men.

The same week that Cambridge changed its definition, a U.K. judge ruled that the 2018 Gender Representation on Public Boards Act, which mandates certain percentages of women on public boards, included as women not only females but also individuals with Gender Recognition Certificates stating they are female. Thus a public board could be comprised of all biologically male-bodied persons and still fulfill its obligations under the act.

We see the same double standard at work in other recent rulings. Janice Turner of the Times points out, “The U.S. rowing federation has opened its female category to anyone who ‘identifies as a woman.’ (This, remember, is a sport with a huge male-female physical disparity.) But hey, look at new mixed rowing rules. ‘Boat entries in this category must include 50% athletes assigned as female at birth’ — i.e. no extra dudes in your team because it would be unfair to other dudes. How do you define ‘man’? Someone who never loses out.”

I would argue these legal fictions about sex are not just unfair and unsporting, but also in many cases harmful to women. First, how can you possibly organize for women’s rights when the category of women includes biological men? You are reduced to the inanity of our current discourse over “uterus-havers” and “menstruators,” when those neo-categories are wholly incapable of pointing to the human beings living in female bodies. In one fell swoop, you have made women incapable of articulating whose rights need protecting — even though everyone still knows whose rights are being lost. Didn’t we have an unambiguous word for those human beings? Well, we used to.

Worse, you prevent women from protecting themselves. Our foremothers bequeathed us a variety of ways of detecting, avoiding and mollifying threatening males. One of the major breakthroughs in women’s rights was the right to single-sex spaces, such as women’s restrooms. An extension of this right was the Geneva Convention’s upholding the right for women prisoners to be held in single-sex facilities. 

Now, however, we have women accosted by men in women’s restrooms, and women who dare say anything are too often vilified for calling them biologically male. Even worse, we have had the most vulnerable women — women prisoners — trapped in cells with biological males, which has already resulted in physical abuse and allegations of rape.

When the ducks cannot say “That’s a shark,” or women can’t say male, you have stripped from them the ability to even identify those who may harm them. That we have so corrupted our language to the favor of men, by asserting that biological males can be “women” and must be called “women” if that is what men want, is deeply wrong.

I, for one, will not bend the knee to this blatant misogyny, so I’m buying those uncorrupted dictionaries while they still exist. Just as the Amish have kept alive their own dialect of English, so dissenters from this conceptual mischief must do the same, and pass uncorrupted language on to those who follow them. For women and for men who value and respect women, the stakes are just too high for complacency. 

Valerie M. Hudson is a university distinguished professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and a Deseret News contributor. Her views are her own.

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Jew vs. ‘jew:’ Google’s offensive definition causes a (brief) online stir - Forward - Dictionary

Google’s logo. Courtesy of iStock

By Mira Fox December 27, 2022

We often talk about the fact that there are large swaths of the U.S., and of the world, where people have never encountered a Jew. And, it turns out, if they were curious to learn more about Jews, and Googled “Jew,” the top result would be a dictionary excerpt defining the term — lowercase — as an offensive verb meaning “to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way.” You had to click a button to see more definitions before finding an entry about the ethnicity or religion.

On Twitter on Tuesday, Jews tweeted a screenshot of the definition in outrage; as of early afternoon on Tuesday, Google appears to have remedied the issue. The search now brings up a dictionary excerpt defining “Jew” — uppercase — as “a member of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham.”

Hey @Google, why does the top search result for "Jew" show up as this? This is incredibly offensive and antisemitic. pic.twitter.com/fz2WuXf93w

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) December 27, 2022

Google often displays what are known as “snippets,” or definitions and excerpts from other sites that sit at the top of a list of search results, without requiring the user to click through to read the original article or page from which they are excerpted. This is particularly common with definitions, which are usually sourced from Oxford Languages, a dictionary company.

There is a disclaimer that accompanies the dictionary snippets, which notes that “Google doesn’t create, write, or modify definitions. Dictionary results don’t reflect the opinions of Google.” The disclaimer section says that Google will include offensive words — always labeled as such — to ensure that the definition is comprehensive. But it says that the search engine will “only display an offensive definition by default when it’s the main meaning of the term.” 

The verb usage of Jew is certainly not the objective meaning. So why was the offensive verb the top result instead of, you know, the religion and ethnicity that’s been around for thousands of years? In a roundabout way, it’s the ancient people — or stereotypes about them, to be specific — that generated the derogatory verb usage in the first place, so that certainly supersedes the offensive usage as a main meaning.

A brainstorm with colleagues brought up a few theories, but none of them quite held up. Is Google not case-sensitive, meaning it defaults to searching for jew in its lowercase usage? Google Trends, a tool that analyzes the popularity of top search queries, does not differentiate between a search for the popularity of “Jew” v. “jew,” confirming that the search engine cannot tell the difference between cases. But if that were why the offensive verb were popping up, results should always favor the lowercase usage.

Yet searching “turkey” brought up the nation, not the Thanksgiving bird. Searching for “china,” similarly, brings up the country, not the material your grandmother’s tea set is made of. 

Perhaps Google puts up the most frequently used or searched-for definition? It’s impossible to confirm which usage is more common, thanks to Google Trends’ lack of case-sensitivity. But from my many years online, in a wide variety of arenas, it seems unlikely that Jew is used more frequently as a verb than as a proper noun. Even antisemitic white supremacists and conspiracy theorists tend to talk — rather nonstop, actually — about the Jews in the word’s proper noun usage. 

Plus, a search for “august” brought up the adjective instead of the month, despite the fact that the month is almost certainly used more frequently. So that puts to bed the idea that the search engine defaults to prioritizing a word’s most frequently used form.

Another theory: it could be the algorithmic tailoring. Users often get different search results on Google, depending on what the search engine’s algorithm thinks you’re likely to want to see. Perhaps you recently were researching synonyms for “big” so a search for “titanic” brought up the adjective, and not the boat. (For me, it pulls up the cast of the movie; movie casts are a frequent search of mine.)

The algorithmic tailoring seems like an unlikely culprit for the Google result for “Jew,” however, given that Jews were the ones raising the alarm about the offensive result — and the fact that many different people all got the same result. 

Google’s algorithm is complex, and uses large sets of data to determine how to rank results and what to show users, including concepts such as “relevance” and “freshness,” according to a page explaining its ranking processes. Perhaps a page or definition using “jew” as an offensive verb was going viral, and that elevated Google’s algorithmic “freshness” assessment — though Google’s public information on ranking specifically says that freshness is more important to news-based queries than when determining which dictionary definitions to show.

As of publication, the search engine had not replied to a request for comment. The offensive verb definition is currently not listed in the dictionary results at all, even when you scroll down. Honestly, though, that seems wrong too.

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