The English language is always adding words and redefining them, making room for words like sexting and GIF, and proving to your parents that they should probably rethink saying they’re going to “hook-up” with Grandma later. In the last two decades hundreds of words have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, making the current lexicon very different from the one you were born into.
1. Manchild (Added in 2000)
And this was a full seven years before Knocked Up.
2. Air Guitar (Added in 2004)
Acknowledged as a noun and a verb.
3. Turducken (Added in 2009)
The Thanksgiving Frankenstein monster is an official holiday dish.
4. Frenching (Added in 2010)
Unfortunately, the definition doesn’t include tips.
5. Bake-off (Added in 2005)
Used in a sentence, “You think your snickerdoodles are better than mine….this bake-off is on!”
6. Home Page (Added in 1994)
Going back to the dial-up days.
7. Muggle (Added in 1997)
Just to help little Harry out.
8. Bling (Added in 1999)
In anticipation of the bling explosion of the early 2000s.
8. Bestie (added in 2014)
Making way for all those bestie necklaces.
9. Beer Pong (Added in 2006)
An entry college students deemed long overdue.
10. Tighty-whities (Added in 2007)
Because we really needed another word for underwear.
11. Blogosphere
Aka a place where angry people live.
12. Generation Y (Added in 2010)
Your own generation letter.
13. GIF (Added in 2006)
They included a pronunciation guide too, but we’re just going to ignore that.
Lead image via [Feng Yu/Shutterstock]
