June saw a considerable drop in submissions to the Open Dictionary following May’s peak, and a drop in quality too, with just 28% of submitted entries being approved for publication. Types of submissions that will always be rejected include: entries that consist of the submitter’s own name, or that of someone they fancy, or dislike, with or without accompanying comments; words and phrases that are already in the dictionary; words and phrases that are invented just for the purpose of submission; foreign words and phrases that are never used in English; entries that consist of meaningless strings of letters; entries that are gratuitously obscene. It seems extraordinary to go to the trouble of submitting entries that will never be published, but clearly some people have a lot of time on their hands.
As happens every month, however, in among the dross were many nuggets of pure gold. Several of these came from one of our regular contributors, Boris Marchenko from the Russian Federation, whose submissions this month included the useful phrases get ahead of yourself, at a minimum, and the same goes for somebody or something, along with the invaluable abbreviation FFS. Other useful additions included fast-breaking, overthink and the phrasal verb read over. It might seem surprising that this last one was not in the dictionary already, but in fact we had only the very similar read through. None of these are earth-shattering novelties, but they are all useful additions, helping to widen the dictionary’s coverage even further.
There were quite a few foodie entries this month, including chico, goji berry, kabob, natto and ugli. Some interesting informal words from different dialects were added too, including flapdoodle, bajillion, yipes and my favourite, worldie (a Geordie term of approval).
The UK’s EU referendum result has inevitably inspired a number of coinages, including Regrexit, Regrexiteer, and Brexistence as well as the swiftly repurposed buyer’s remorse. My word of the month, Bregret, means the same as Regrexit but is beating it in frequency terms on current showing.
Thanks for all your submissions and do keep them coming. If there’s a word or expression that you think deserves inclusion in the Open Dictionary you can submit it here. Don’t forget to check first to make sure your word isn’t in our dictionary already.
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