30 Terms Added to Dictionary.com for Fall 2023 - Mentalfloss - Dictionary

People unfamiliar with Philadelphia slang can finally look up jawn in the dictionary. The all-purpose noun, meaning “something or someone for which the speaker does not know or does not need a specific name,” is one of 566 new entries on Dictionary.com. 

Jawn isn’t the only slang term to earn a spot on the site. Nepo baby, a celebrity whose famous parent (or parents) may have given them a leg up in their career, also made the cut. According to Dictionary.com, the first recorded instance of nepo baby was just last year; the fact that it already has its own dictionary entry is a testament to how quickly and widely social media can spread language. 

We also have social media to thank for popularizing shower orange, which is exactly what it sounds like: You peel and eat an orange in the shower, where the steam supposedly “enhances the orange’s citrusy fragrance and creates a soothing experience” for you.

Certain terms are more likely to pop up in books than on TikTok—like agelast, which describes someone who never laughs or lacks a sense of humor. And some are loanwords from other languages—like kakeibo, a Japanese budgeting method “based on a simple financial philosophy of spending and saving that is both mindful and purposeful.”

Another intriguing entry is mountweazel, “a decoy entry in a reference work … secretly planted among the genuine entries to catch other publishers in the act of copying content.” Dictionary.com copped to having some, but wouldn’t reveal them for obvious reasons.

The site also added nearly 350 new definitions and revised another 2250 or so. Those changes included swapping out binary-gendered wording like he or she in favor of the more inclusive they and its iterations. In some cases, the lexicographers just edited the definition so no pronouns were needed at all.

Take a look at 30 newly added terms below, and learn more about the update here.

He's mad that 'nepo baby' is in the dictionary now. / CSA Images/Vetta/Getty Images

“A person who never laughs; a humorless person.”

“Noting or relating to a person whose gender identity is linked to or impacted by the fact that they are intersex.”

“Strategic biological experimentation, especially upon oneself, using technology, drugs, hormones, diet, etc., with the goal of enhancing or augmenting performance, health, mood, or the like.”

“Unwanted software that is preinstalled on a newly bought device, especially when it negatively impacts the device’s performance.”

Blursdays. / Archive Holdings Inc./The Image Bank/Getty Images

“A day not easily distinguished from other days, or the phenomenon of days running together.”

“A hairstyle originating among Black people, in which the hair is parted into small squares or other shapes over the scalp and the hair from each section is woven into a braid.”

“A person who has had to flee their home due to the negative effects of climate change.”

“Child of deaf adult/adults: a hearing person with a deaf parent or parents.”

“A short nap, usually 15-30 minutes, taken immediately after drinking a cup of coffee, the claimed benefit being that the energizing effect of caffeine may be bolstered by a sleeping body’s drop in adenosine levels.”

“(Of a business) owned by someone who is part of a group historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship, such as women, ethnic or racial minorities, LGBTQ+ people, etc.”

Now you know what 'GPT' stands for. / Vithun Khamsong/Moment/Getty Images

“Generative pre-trained transformer: a type of machine learning algorithm that uses deep learning and a large database of training text in order to generate new text in response to a user’s prompt.”

“The strategic promotion of a nation’s cuisine to build diplomatic connections and favorable public relations for that nation, such as by funding grants to open restaurants, create food-oriented workshops, publish cookbooks, etc.”

“An instance or practice of promoting or affiliating a brand, campaign, mission, etc., with environmentalism as a ploy to divert attention from policies and activities that are in fact anti-environmentalist.”

“Korean traditional dress, usually consisting of loose, tied garments such as wrapped shirts and robes, long full skirts, and trousers gathered at the ankles.”

“Design elements of public buildings and spaces that are intended to stop unwanted behavior such as loitering or sleeping in public by making such behavior difficult and uncomfortable.”

“Something or someone for which the speaker does not know or does not need a specific name.”

A Christmas tradition we can get behind. / photography by Kate Hiscock/Moment/Getty Images

“An Icelandic tradition in which books are given as Christmas presents and opened on December 24, after which the evening is spent reading the books: from a practice begun in 1944, when paper goods were among the most available items in postwar Iceland.”

A Japanese loanword meaning “a system of maintaining one’s household budget based on a simple financial philosophy of spending and saving that is both mindful and purposeful.”

“The labor involved in maintaining and enhancing family ties, including organizing social occasions, remembering birthdays, sending gifts, etc.”

“A decoy entry in a reference work, such as a dictionary or encyclopedia, secretly planted among the genuine entries to catch other publishers in the act of copying content.”

“A celebrity with a parent who is also famous, especially one whose industry connections are perceived as essential to their success.”

LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne in 2023. / Alex Goodlett/GettyImages

“Name, image, likeness: aspects of a collegiate athlete’s identity for which they may earn money from a third party … although they are prohibited from being paid directly by colleges or universities for their participation in intercollegiate sports.”

“To make less good, efficient, fast, functional, etc., especially in the context of computers or information technology.”

“An adage of internet culture stating that unless some tone indicator is used, it is impossible to tell the difference between an extreme view being sincerely espoused and an extreme view being satirized.”

“Noting or relating to a person who is sexually attracted to people of various genders, but not necessarily to people of all genders.”

“The centering of present-day attitudes, values, and concepts in the interpretation of historical events.”

“The network of government agencies and private industry that foster, benefit from, and contribute to mass incarceration, the imprisonment of large numbers of people.”

You know you want to try it. / 5m3photos/Moment/Getty Images

“An orange that is peeled and eaten under a steamy shower, the purported benefit being that the steam enhances the orange’s citrusy fragrance and creates a soothing experience for the person who is showering.”

A British term meaning “to wipe mucus from (the nose), especially with the finger or thumb.”

“The feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.”

Are you a logophile? Do you want to learn unusual words and old-timey slang to make conversation more interesting, or discover fascinating tidbits about the origins of everyday phrases? Then get our new book, The Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases, & Surprising Etymologies, out now! You can pick up your copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, or Bookshop.org.

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Drop antisemitic descriptions from Spanish lexicon, urge Jewish groups - The Guardian - Dictionary

More than 20 Jewish groups from Spanish-speaking countries and beyond have written to Spain’s leading linguistic authority asking it to remove antisemitic definitions from its dictionary that describe a judío (Jew) as “a greedy or money-lending person” and the related term judiada as a synonym for “dirty trick”.

In a letter to the 300-year-old Spanish Royal Academy (RAE), which chronicles and oversees the evolution of the Spanish language, the groups urge the institution to rethink the two entries in its official Dictionary of the Spanish Language on the grounds that they are outdated, “utterly antisemitic” and contrary to the Spanish constitution.

The fifth definition of judío that appears in the dictionary – flagged as a pejorative term – is “in relation to a person – greedy or money-lending”. The first definition of judiada, which notes that the word was originally used “with antisemitic intent”, is “a dirty trick or an action that is detrimental to someone”, while the second entry refers to “a crowd or group of Jews”.

The letter, backed by Spain’s Federation of Jewish Communities, the Anti-Defamation League and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says such definitions belong to the tradition of antisemitism in Spain that led to the expulsion or forced conversion of the country’s Jewish population in 1492 under the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella.

“The definitions of the word judío and judiada in no way reflect the true meaning of these terms,” the letter says. “These descriptions are the product of a medieval and renaissance terminology of rejection, envy and hatred directed at the Jews who, because of their work, had the highest incomes – which was one of the factors that led to their expulsion from Spain by the Catholic monarchs.”

The signatories acknowledged that the RAE had attempted to explain that use of the word judío to mean “a greedy or money-lending person” was pejorative, but said “as far as the international Jewish community is concerned, the move has served only to confirm that we are dealing with an untrue definition that feeds antisemitism, harming the image of Jews by condemning them as a group of greedy people or moneylenders”.

The RAE has been contacted for comment.

In recent years, Spain has attempted to confront its antisemitic past and to treasure the social, historical and linguistic contributions of its long-exiled Jewish population.

In 2015, the Spanish government attempted to atone for what it termed the “historical wrong” of the expulsion and persecution of its Jewish communities by offering citizenship to the descendants of those who were forced from their homeland.

The offer, which expired in October 2019, resulted in 132,226 people of Sephardic descent applying for Spanish citizenship.

Nine years ago, the 52 eligible residents of Castrillo Matajudíos – which translates as Camp Kill Jews – voted in a referendum to change the village’s name back to Castrillo Mota de Judíos, which means Jews’ Hill Camp.

The village, in the northern region of Castilla y León, is thought to have been established in the 11th century by a group of Jews who had been expelled from a nearby settlement. Although it became a popular trading hub and home to more than 1,000 people, life changed drastically after the 1492 expulsion.

Some researchers believe the name was changed to signal loyalty to Catholicism and the crown, while others think it may have been a slip of the pen, changing mota (hill) to mata (kill). Over the past two years, Castrillo Mota de Judíos has been subjected to two antisemitic attacks and daubed with graffiti reading: “Camp Kill Jews, twinned with Aushwitch [sic]”; “Juden Raus [Jews Out]” and “Long live the Catholic monarchs”.

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How a quintessentially Yiddish sensibility created a thoroughly modern Don Quixote - Forward - Translation

Edith Grossman, translator of the Quixote. Photo by Kelly Writers House via Wikimedia Commons

By Benjamin Ivry September 6, 2023

Edith Grossman, the Jewish American translator who died Sept. 4 at age 87, proved that the mere sound of Yiddish can inspire reveries of transmuting one language into another.

Responsible for translating Don Quixote as well as the modern Spanish language authors Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, Grossman told an interviewer in 2016 that when her parents “wanted to say things so I wouldn’t understand, they spoke in Yiddish.”

The mysterious allure of the Yiddish language as heard in childhood, she implied, opened doors for imagining further worlds of verbal expression.

Grossman eventually did acquire some Yiddish vocabulary because, as she put it, she “grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia.” But in later years, she confessed to another journalist, it almost completely disappeared from her conscious memory.

Instead, she focused entirely on Spanish, unlike previous virtuosos of translation like Boston-born Isaac Goldberg, who translated modern Spanish writers as well as the Yiddish eminences Peretz Hirschbein, Sholem Asch and David Pinski.

Two rare volumes of Miguel de Cervantes’ novel were auctioned off in London in 2022. Photo by Getty Images

Grossman was drawn to the Spanish language by Naomi Zieber, a high school Spanish teacher whom she later recalled as “such a humane woman.” Grossman added that Zieber was “serious and demanding but not rigid,” inspiring Grossman to resolve, “‘Oh, whatever [Zieber] does, I’m going to do.’”

Later an avid fan of contemporary Jewish novelists like Philip Roth and Paul Auster, Grossman honed a literary vocabulary and style in fiction that was plausible for readers of American English, no matter how exotic its origins may have been.

Of Roth, Grossman said that he recreated a “specific moment” in American history and “explore[d] it very deeply.” In this achievement, she felt, Roth was akin to García Márquez, who described his native Colombia in his works. So kvelling over Roth’s prose put Grossman in good stead for understanding the literary goals of a South American Nobel Prize winner.

To this ease in bookish transposition, Grossman added a sense of musicality and vocality. These were also precious additions to a translator’s repertoire. Grossman’s ex-husband was a musician, as are her two sons, and a poster of Aretha Franklin decorated a wall in her Upper West Side apartment as a sign of her onetime aspiration to be a blues singer.

This reverence for mellifluence surely added to the charisma and lifelike quality of her translations. Who knows what might have happened had Grossman followed in the path of other Jewish women blues singers, from Libby Holman to Elly Wininger, instead of restricting her main jazz-like improvisations to the printed page?

As it was, she retained a stage-like allure that bewitched some onlookers like the translator Jonathan Cohen, who noted that when he met her for the first time, he considered Grossman a “volcanic beauty.”

Grossman’s intense aura was appreciated by those who paid tribute to her on the occasion of her 80th birthday at an event organized by the PEN America Translation Committee. There, the publisher John Donatich commended her “almost maternal ferocity and an adventurous intelligence.”

Indeed, this free-spirited Jewish mother was like a breath of fresh air in the sometimes dry, business-minded worlds of commercial and academic publishing. Another speaker at the PEN America gathering stressed Grossman’s appreciation of pork, as if to suggest that her Jewishness did not include strict ritual observance.

Her unorthodox approach to translating classic works, such as Don Quixote, likewise raised some hackles in academia.

In November 2004, at a Hofstra University conference, Grossman freely admitted ignoring the vast scholarly bibliography surrounding Don Quixote because “a lifetime would not be enough time to read it all, and I had a two years’ contract.”

For “practical and sentimental” reasons, as she put it, she chose to use a single, outdated and already superseded edition of Don Quixote as the text she would translate from. The American Jewish Hispanist Daniel Eisenberg thought that this decision was a shanda, calling Grossman the “most textually ignorant of the modern translators” of Don Quixote.

According to another maven, Tom Lathrop of the University of Delaware, some of Grossman’s word choices were odd, such as when she referred to a “benison” received from prostitutes who helped dress Don Quixote before he departed from an inn; the more common word “favor,” as used by previous translators such as J. M. Cohen and Burton Raffel, was clearer.

Lathrop also preferred Cohen’s version of a passage in which Don Quixote simply calls someone a “boor” compared to Grossman’s more ornate word choice of “base varlet.”

Possibly further irritating the specialists, Harold Bloom contributed a quintessentially swashbuckling introduction to Grossman’s translation, not mentioning such Jewish Cervantes mavens as Eisenberg, Edward H. Friedman or Karl-Ludwig Selig.

Instead, as was usually the case with Bloom, he erupted with whatever happened to be on his mind at the time, which happened to be a lot about Shakespeare and also a number of Jewish writers, including Erich Auerbach, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Harry Levin and Marcel Proust. Although surely a distinguished bunch, their direct relevance to Cervantes might have been debatable.

Yet if Grossman’s “Quixote” seemed a trifle anti-academic in university circles, this may not have been a result of “ignorance,” as Eisenberg put it, but a deliberate aesthetic choice on her part.

In her 2010 book Why Translation Matters, Grossman cited the German Jewish essayist Walter Benjamin to the effect that translation should not simply strive for likeness to the original. Her book also quotes the American Jewish translator Ralph Manheim as stating that “translators are like actors who speak the lines as the author would if the author could speak English.”

These notions were in fact embodied in Grossman’s theatrical, freewheeling approach to translation that worked ideally with the emotional, imaginative universe of modern Latin American and Spanish fiction.

It was perhaps inevitable that with more venerable literary monuments, a degree of controversy would result from this amount of exuberant chutzpah. For Grossman’s Yiddishkeit was also evident in the sheer rabble-rousing energy with which she usually pled her causes; not coincidentally, her father had worked as a passionately motivated union organizer.

As recently as 2019, in a chat with a literary journal, she lauded her “very feisty” lawyer Neal Gatcher, who had insisted to publishers that Grossman’s name should appear on the covers of books she translated, a quite atypical prominence in the publishing industry. This star billing soon won her special status in a business where such details count.

Light-years away from the usual introverted, downtrodden, ill-paid and disrespected literary translator, Grossman was described by the The New York Times as an “earthy, tough New Yorker who was known as ‘Edie.’”

So Edie Grossman earned her place as a luminary of the literary scene with gusto and verve rooted in Yiddishkeit.

Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.

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20 Years Ago, Millennials Found Themselves 'Lost in Translation' - Esquire UK - Translation

There is no sadder place on the internet than an Instagram film account. They are all the same: fuzzy, well-chosen screenshots of beautiful people with easily-digestible quotations overlaid. (Every time I consider reposting these to my story, usually at 2am, I cringe and leave it in my saved folder: the second saddest place on the internet.) The only theme is love, more specifically heartbreak, which plays well on Instagram. Where else do heartbroken people go? And you would think, from these accounts, only a handful of films had ever been released: the Before Sunrise trilogy, In the Mood for Love, anything by Greta Gerwig, a television exception for Normal People. Tales of unrequited, lost, fragile love. Another touchstone? Lost in Translation.

Somehow, Translation is now 20, and it feels as fresh as anything from the past year. It helps that director Sofia Coppola’s unhurried, impressionistic vision has stayed in style. Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a self-described “mean” Yale graduate, who’s in Tokyo while her photographer husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi, perfect in his small role), is working. After a few close encounters, mostly at the hotel bar, she strikes up a friendship with faded movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray), who is shooting a campaign for Suntory whisky. These jet-lagged characters are disgusted by their networks: publicists, valley girls, nagging wives, distant boyfriends. Thus the May-December relationship blossoms, over karaoke, and drinks, and meals in a foreign city.

Nothing in Translation should be relatable: the proximity of celebrity, the cost of a room at the Park Hyatt (around £1000 a night), having a week to spend in Tokyo with no financial worry. But it connected, making almost $120 million on a $4 million budget. Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. You see Translation’s legacy everywhere, not just in Tokyo, where there are film-related tours of the city, but also in the following decades at the cinema. Elements of Charlotte lived on in the dream girls to come: Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer, Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown, Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It lives on in direct references, from Shawn Mendes’ 2018 video for “Lost In Japan” to Johansson’s pink wig to the American success of Phoenix (the French band’s lead singer is now married to Coppola).

When Translation came out, the eldest millennials were 22, around Charlotte’s age. Millennials are not the first to question their life’s purpose or feel stuck (and Coppola, born in 1971, is not one), but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel those things acutely: a generation with lots of options, and even more challenges. Those challenges – recessions, impossible job markets, unaffordable housing – may have existed before, but their impact became a running theme in contemporary coming-of-age films, in which characters wrestled with expectations and reality. A year later, Zach Braff’s Garden State touched on similar themes and became a success (though it has not enjoyed the same critical legacy as Translation). Listless, stunted adult characters populated the mumblecore genre, from Funny Ha Ha (released a year before) to later entries like Frances Ha and Celeste and Jesse Forever.

Translation is an irresistible vessel for those feelings. If the film were set even five years later, Charlotte would be scrolling on an iPhone. Nowadays, she’d be swiping on an app or else uploading to Instagram about how happy she is while actually being miserable. Frozen in a just-before time, Translation channels a lot of anxiety without any of the tools that amplify those anxieties. There is some irony in all the people you know on Instagram who have posted from the Shibuya crossing, depicted in the film: Charlotte would surely roll her eyes at this, snottily. And for younger viewers, it helps that Bob is also in crisis mode: a sign that it is both normal, and if you are really lucky and turn things around at quarter-life, perhaps you can avoid this feeling later.

Coppola had directed her debut, an adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides starring Kristen Dunst, a few years earlier to critical acclaim (that film has only grown in stature since its 1999 release, too). Translation has the impossibly cool origin story that only a film directed by a Coppola child (her dad is filmmaker Francis Ford and her mother is documentarian Eleanor) could have: she travelled to Tokyo for work experience and found herself listlessly wandering around. Coppola is not the first Westerner to be inspired and alienated by an Asian city, nor will she be the last. There are justified critiques that Translation falls into stereotypical traps, but that is the point: this is a film about lost Americans who barely leave their hotel rooms, not Japanese culture. Besides, it easy to believe that Coppola loves this city. More specifically, her camera loves this city: it glides over motorways, and skylines, and billboards, and neon signs with a fuzzy, miraculous ease, as though Coppola cannot believe this place exists.

Mystery is the name of the game, and a significant aspect of Translation’s enduring legacy. The final scene – in which Bob whispers unknown words into Charlotte’s ear – is perhaps the most enduring enigma. The kiss was improvised, and no one apart from Johansson, Murray and Coppola knows what was said (and good luck getting an answer from them). YouTube videos have since tried to decode it by manipulating the sound, but it is nicer to believe that puzzles still exist.

Its other, and this one is more intriguing, is the relationship between Bob and Charlotte, not solely platonic, but not precisely romantic. “It was more about those relationships that you have that are more than friends but less than a love affair,” Coppola told The Independent on the film’s UK release. “There’s something so sweet about them that you don’t want to see them ripping each others’ clothes off.” Like many of the best relationships, Charlotte and Bob instantly find home in each other: a place where you can ask questions and, even if you don’t receive an answer, feel heard.

In the scene which most obviously epitomises that dynamic (and one that film accounts commonly repurpose), Charlotte confesses that she has no idea what she wants to be to Bob, while they lay in bed. She tried being a writer, but hated what she wrote. She tried taking pictures, but hers were so mediocre: “Every girl goes through a photography phases, like horses, you know, dumb pictures of your feet…” Bob tells her to keep writing, which is sound advice. Translation is comforting because you’re never in doubt that Charlotte is going to be absolutely fine. Yes, she is privileged, but she is also intelligent and sensitive and the film validates that worldview. That self-awareness, feeling lacklustre and unambitious despite education and resources, is another relatable trope of millennial culture.

“Why do you have to be with your opposite, why can’t similar people be together?” Charlotte asks towards the end of her sleepover heart-to-heart with Bob. “Because that would be too easy,” he answers, a response that your least philosophical friend would reel off, and yet somehow feels momentous. Translation is often like this: feather light, and serious as a paper cut. What Coppola pulls off, unique even among her remarkably high-quality oeuvre, is infinite interpretation: a Rorschach test for each viewer. Are you content, sad, in love, heartbroken, full of wonder, exhausted? There is an answer here, should you wish to find one.

A 17-second video of that scene, posted this past summer on TikTok, has been played almost 90,000 times. Videos posted under the film’s hashtag have amassed 379.5 million views on the platform. When you search the film on Instagram, as one might do at 2am, you will be greeted by thousands of glittering stills of Bob and Charlotte, smoking at a bar, resting their heads on each other in a lift, or catching sight of one another in a crowd. Read, if you can, the comments: a wave of tear-stained and broken heart emojis, proclamations of loneliness and uncertainty and understanding exactly what the characters are going through. That is the lovely, legacy-defining trick of Coppola’s film: how, in its depiction of isolation, it has managed to connect so many, decades after its parting, inscrutable whisper.

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The Dictionary of the Jamaican Language takes you bak tu skuul - Jamaica Gleaner - Dictionary

The Jamaican language, popularly referred to as (Jamaican) Patwa, is a significant component of brand Jamaica. However, despite its high international visibility and mounting global interest, it is severely under-resourced in its homeland.

The language has benefitted from the work of outstanding linguists such as Beryl Loftman Bailey whose book Jamaican Creole Syntax (1966) was the first technical grammar of the language, and Frederic G. Cassidy and Robert B. Le Page’s Dictionary of Jamaican English (DJE), which was the first scholarly dictionary prepared. While these works have enjoyed much attention in academia, they are not as known as they should be by ordinary Jamaicans, and they are consulted even less.

Admittedly, on the market are numerous phrase books, glossaries, and dictionaries prepared by laypeople, but these tend to suffer from one or more of the following issues: incorrect part of speech identification; mismatch between the part of speech, the definition, and the example sentence; and incomplete information, forcing Jamaican into English structure. One exception is Eric Rosenfeld’s comprehensive Jamaicasaurus, However, like all of the others (including the scholarly works), it only describes those areas in which Jamaican is different from Standard English. Unfortunately, this common approach of only treating the differences ends up making our vibrant language look malnourished.

FILL THE GAP

To fill the gap, work began in earnest this month on the Dictionary of the Jamaican Language (DJL). The DJL will be a bilingual, unidirectional dictionary; bilingual because the headwords are in Jamaican and the definitions in English; unidirectional because there is no reverse section where the headwords are in English and the definitions are given in Jamaican. The latter will be done at a later stage. The main plan is for the dictionary to be web-based but we may contemplate a print version based on demand. The DJL is coming at an opportune time when there is an urgent need for general-purpose dictionaries and learners’ grammars to support the aims of the National Standards Curriculum, as well as the teaching and learning of Jamaican as a second/foreign language.

Scholarly dictionaries such as the DJE and Richard Allsopp’s Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (DCEU) attempt to treat both Jamaican and Jamaican English between the same two covers. Additionally, they are intended as supplements to dictionaries such as Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, which cover metropolitan varieties of English. In keeping with their supplemental nature, they mostly list ‘Jamaicanisms’, i.e. words and senses that were considered unique to Jamaica. For example, the only sense the DJE lists for Jamaican sik (sick) is “to sicken, to make sick”, reflecting its use as a transitive verb; because, at that time, that was the only meaning different from standard English. However, Jamaicans also use the word sik as an adjective, e.g. di sik man, and as a stative verb, e.g. di biebi did sik. The latter usage is one way in which the Jamaican word is different from its English source; a feature which Jamaican shares with several West African languages where words denoting properties and states tend to be verbs. The DJL will reflect this aspect of the language rather than trying to force Jamaican into the structures of English and Latin.

The DJL will focus on contemporary usage but, since it aims to be a full record of the Jamaican language, it will include words and senses that have been used throughout the history of the language. Because of the contemporary focus, the order of senses will not necessarily reflect their historical development. Current senses will be listed before older, more dated, ones. Since the speakers of the Jamaican language are in full preparation mode for the back-to-school season, we decided to announce the start of our work on the dictionary by presenting to the nation a little over 30 of the entries to be included in the DJL which are related to school life.

STRUCTURE OF DJL ENTRIES

The headword will be followed by the part of speech. Although we have abbreviated the part of speech below because of space constraints, in the actual dictionary, the part of speech will be spelt out. The part of speech is usually followed by the sense or senses associated with that specific part of speech. Where a word has multiple senses, those senses are numbered consecutively. In cases where additional information about the use of the word/sense may be useful, this is written in small capitals and placed before the relevant sense. Some of these usage labels include “dated”, for words that are old-fashioned (mostly used by grandparents), “offensive” (likely to offend, degrade, upset), “dormant” (no longer in use), and “historical” (still used but only when talking about the past). Each sense is followed by a made-up example sentence which helps to illustrate how the word is used. In the web-based dictionary, each headword will be accompanied by at least one audio file which contains the pronunciation of the word.

Since the DJL is meant to contribute to the standardisation of the language, headwords will be written using the Cassidy-JLU Writing System (CJLU), which is an easy-to-learn phonemic system that was developed by Jamaica-born linguist Frederic Cassidy and amended by the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU). The beauty of this system is that, even if you are seeing or hearing a word for the first time, it doesn’t take long to work out its spelling or pronunciation.

The DJL editorial team comprises a chief editor, Joseph Farquharson; assistant editor, Tajay Henry, and three subeditors, Tali Thorney, Carson Thomas and Donikue Campbell. The initial phase of the DJL is planned to last between 2023 and 2025. This phase is made possible by financial support from the CHASE Fund.

DJL ENTRIES

Abbreviations: intr., intransitive; n., noun; phr., phrase; stat., stative; tr., transitive; v. verb

baal-ed-i-tiicha n. OFFENSIVE. a term of address used by children to taunt a boy sporting a bald head. Baal-ed-i-tiicha, wiet til skuul uova.

baks lonch n. cooked food served for lunch in a disposable rectangular or square container. Bai di taim mi riich a kyantiin, baks lonch don.

bak-tu-skuul n. the period just before the beginning of the school year that is used to make preparations. Dongtoun ful op chruu a bak-tu-skuul ya nou.

big skuul n. (for basic and primary-school students) any education level above the one they are at.

Kim api se shi a go big skuul Septemba a kom.

boblz n. a hair accessory for girls comprising an elastic cord with a small ball at each end. Mi lov wen mi mada plat op mi ier an put iin di priti boblz dem.

brait spaaks n. a person who is quick-witted; but, more commonly, someone who is good at book learning. = SPAAKS. Mi no shak se shi paas ar egzam kaa mi nuo se shi a brait spaaks.

brieks n. 1. = BRIEKS TAIM. 2. any snack that is (intended to be) eaten during the short scheduled break during school hours. Mi figat mi brieks pan i dainin tiebl dis maanin.

brieks taim n. a short scheduled break during the schoolday which allows students to refresh themselves. = BRIEKS. Notn no iina yu lonch pan fi brieks taim so yu afi bai sitn a tok shap.

dons bat n. OFFENSIVE. a person who is slow at book learning. Im neva du im uomwork gud. Im a dons bat.

eksasaiz buk n. 1. a ruled book with either a soft or a hard cover (measuring roughly 4.9 x 6.9 in.), primarily used for writing in schools. Dem nowadiez eksasaiz buk no iizi fi mash op. 2. DATED. a ruled book with a soft cover that is primarily used for writing in schools. Mi eksasaiz buk ful op a mats.

fos braitis n. (in schools where students are streamed based on performance) the class at each grade level with the top-performing students. Mi mash op di egzam so mi a-go ina fos braitis neks ier.

freshaz n. a new student at a college or university, especially during the orientation period. Di freshaz dem a kom iin orli fi kalek dem pakij.

grob n. a new student who is bullied by older students to perform menial or degrading tasks.

Luk ou lang wi sen di grob fi go bai pati an im kyaahn kom bak yet. v. tr. to bully a new student by forcing them to perform menial or degrading tasks. Di fos wiik mi de a ai skuul di biga bwai dem grob mi.

guomin taim n. = GUOMIN UOM TAIM.

guomin uom taim n. the scheduled time one departs for home at the end of a day-long activity such as school or work. = GUOMIN TAIM. Di bel jos ring so dat miin se a guomin uom taim nou.

jain op phr. v. tr. 1. to link or connect two or more things. Dem jain op di buod dem an mek wahn siit. 2. to work together; co-operate; collaborate. Di tuu a dem jain op fi pie di bil. phr. v. stat. be linked or connected. Di tuu piis a waya dem jain op. phr. v. intr. to become a member of a group or organisation. Dem a plan paadna agen bot dis taim mi naa jain op. n. a style of handwriting in which the letters of a word are joined to each other: cursive. = JAININ OP. Sins mi staat taip mi kyaahn rait ina jain op agen.

jainin op n. = JAIN OP n.

kalijaz n. a student who attends a teachers’ college or community college. Di kalijaz dem ful op di kuk shap.

kapi skecha n. a student who copies from the work of others. = kapi teka. Mi a chrai tel tiicha se Jan a kapi skecha.

kapi teka n. = KAPI SKECHA.

kraab tuo = KRAB TUO.

krab tuo n. poor handwriting. Da kraab tuo ya aad fi riid.

lainz n. a sentence or passage that is copied multiple times by hand as a form of punishment in school. Mi kech a skuul liet so di klaas priifek gi mi lainz fi du.

push paint n. 1. a type of pencil with an internal chamber that holds the graphite stick. The stick comes out by squeezing or twisting a part of the pencil. Di push paint we mi a yuuz ron outa led. 2. a wood-cased pencil with a loose graphite stick that can be pushed through the wood casing from either end. It aad fi rait wid push paint.

rang bang n. an X mark used by a teacher grading student work to indicate an incorrect answer. Mi a-go stodi aad fi Mats kaa mi no waahn get no rang bang.

red ingk n. 1. ink that is red in colour. Di red ingk kech mi kluoz. 2. a pen that has red ink. Beg yu wahn red ingk mek mi maak dem piepa ya.

skuulaz n. a student who attends school, especially up to the secondary level. Di ruobot taksi dem no waahn kyar no skuulaz.

spaaks n. = BRAIT SPAAKS.

stiki n. a check mark used by a teacher to indicate that a student’s work is correct or has been checked. = uk stik. Luk umoch stiki mi get ina mi buk.

taim tiebl n. = TAIMZ TIEBL.

taimz tiebl n. a list containing multiples of a series of numbers, used by students as a study aid. = TAIM TIEBL. Tiich se wi fi nuo wi taimz tiebl.

tiich n. an affectionate term of address for a teacher. Tiich, mi jos waahn fi tangk yu fi tek kier a Jahnoi.

uk stik n. 1. a check mark used by a teacher to indicate that a student’s work is correct or has been checked. Johnny get nof uk stik ina im buk. 2. a long stick with a crook or a v-shaped hook at one end used for hoisting or lowering things. Di uk stik kudn riich di manggo dem pan di tap lim. 3. a sturdy stick roughly 2 ½ ft in length (cut from a tree in such a way so there is a short hook at one end), used while clearing land or weeding with a machete. Di faama dem yuuz dem uk stik wen dem a bush di plies so di mashiet no chap dem.

wash out phr. v. tr. 1. use water or other types of liquid to remove unwanted material from something. Mi tuu tayad fi wash out di tuu likl piis a kluoz. 2. (of an event) to cancel because of rain. Di fans dem beks kaa rien wash out di mach. 3. to have an abortion. Im gi mi sitn fi jringk fi wash out di biebi. phr. v. intr. (of a place that is normally dry) covered by a lot of water; flooded. Mi faada grong wash out an im luuz evriting. n. the process of using a substance to stimulate the evacuation of the bowels. Wen alidie don wi afi tek wash out.

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You can now look up the definitions of “nepo baby” and “shower orange” on dictionary.com. - Literary Hub - Dictionary

September 6, 2023, 7:00am

Attention word nerds: today, Dictionary.com announced its latest update, which includes 566 new entries, 348 new definitions for pre-existing entries, and 2,256 revised definitions.

New additions include terms you likely know (nepo baby, decision fatigue, box braids) and a few terms you may not, unless you are more online and/or cooler than I (shower orange, atmospheric river, mountweazel). The full list of new terms can be found here.

“People are so creative! As you can imagine, recording the ever-changing language is incredibly enjoyable while also being intellectually stimulating,” said Grant Barrett, head of lexicography at Dictionary.com and co-host of the public radio show A Way with Words, in a press release. “Even though dictionary-making is what we do, we’re still delighted with the variety, depth and complexity of this big batch of terms. There’s so much that shows how vibrant the language is, as it keeps up with changes in culture and society.”

This update also includes another major change: Dictionary.com’s lexicographers have removed binary-gendered phrases across the dictionary’s entries. “On the inclusivity side, his or her does not include people who use other pronouns,” they explained in the same press release. “In terms of usage, they is simply much more common as a generic pronoun than he or she, including in spoken and all but the most formal types of written English.”

“We always strive for Dictionary.com to be clear and helpful for our users,” Barrett added. “Updating binary-gendered phrases makes the entries more similar to how people actually speak and write. The entries are now more natural-sounding.”

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Review: The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary a dramatic eulogy to ... - The Irish News - Dictionary

Paul Garrett who plays David Ervine in 'The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary', a new play by Bobby Niblock. Picture by Hugh Russell

THERE were times in Green Shoot’s production of The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary, a dramatic eulogy to the late, great David Ervine, when you felt Long Kesh must have been a kind of Open University course for people reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

That’s maybe unfair, and we heard about abuse, although Gusty Spence did recommend the book to his jailed protégé - and its message went home.

For Ervine’s nuanced politics were left-wing, with a repeated line about ‘big house unionism’ ignoring the two up-two down reality of their voters.

This spread to a humorous scene early on when David Ervine’s mother assures Ian Paisley on the doorstep that he has their vote, while his dad, a life-long socialist, says not on his watch. But more colourfully.

The first half of Robert Niblock’s one man show about the life of the man who put the PUP properly on the map was affectionate.

Premiered at the Lyric last night, it was a portrait of one man’s journey rather than the conflict overall, and Paul Garrett portrayed him energetically and with feeling.

The late David Ervine who is the focus of The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary

Read more:

The last word on David Ervine: The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary

David Ervine play to open at Lyric before tour of Northern Ireland

"Working-class unionists miss a leader like David Ervine" says play producer

We heard that when asked what sort of baby it was after his birth, usually meaning gender, the messenger said ‘He’s a Protestant’. He was, but a fairly unusual one in his time and place.

The narrative covered the ground, from leaving school early to hanging out with his teenage mates.

One segue goes from groping big Tracey, who has enhanced her figure with stuffed newspaper including a cutting detailing fighting in Derry that heralds the start of the Troubles, to the history.

The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary writer Bobby Niblock, actor Paul Garrett and director Matthew McElhinney. Picture by Mal McCann

There was a plausible sense of Ervine sleepwalking into the UVF, led by the first guy he has to call 'sir'.

He’s bolshy but settles into the mindset, having as a kid learnt his neighbours might be dubbed ‘Fenians’.

This is familiar territory, but from a particular perspective when it comes to the actual violence. Coalisland is namechecked, as well as Bloody Friday, when IRA bombs clustered in Belfast city centre.

Family life suffers and Jeanette, Ervine’s teenage love and wife, resists the money due her from the paramilitaries once her husband receives his lengthy sentence.

The judge pronounced Ervine good with words but still a terrorist, sentencing him to 11 years.

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary stars Paul Garrett. Picture by Hugh Russell

The guy’s verbal talent was threaded through the script via key words and phrases – crossing the Rubicon to determined, the latter from grandson Mark aiming to be a superhero – the definitions read out from the Oxford English Dictionary. David Craig’s nice set consists of two enormous books laid out open onstage.

There are more than decent passages, with Davy’s reaction to his grandson’s death by suicide harrowing. Yet we didn’t entirely get why this engaging man shifted his world view, even though his quotes, including the famous line noting "We’re all just people" gave a clue. 

The Man who Swallowed a Dictionary

There was realpolitik, also real passion on behalf of his community, with Ervine pleading with Mo Mowlam to release Loyalist prisoners as well as Republicans and save the Good Friday Agreement. She phoned Tony, of course.

The Lyric has fielded a few dramas recently on questions of Irish political identity, including the outstanding Agreement.  

This wasn’t that, but a different look at history through a single, significant life. Matthew McElhinney directed with care.

The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary runs until September 10 at The Lyric Theatre, then tours, ending up at the Playhouse, Derry on September 24. 

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