English is a language on the move, with many hundreds of new words and phrases coming into existence every year.
Although these are picked up by Oxford's worldwide monitoring programme, many of these coinages have only a fleeting lifespan and may never appear in the dictionary.
This monthly feature takes a look at some of the most recent and interesting words, phrases, and other language changes which have caught our eye and which could be vying for a place in one of our future dictionaries.
Date | Title | Author/Reference |
19/06/08 |
Some of the latest words to have bubbled into the Concise Oxford English Dictionary | Bethan Taylor |
16/05/08 |
A new entry after an extended break. Enjoy! | Simon Christie | 21/12/2007 |
The results of the Language Report 5 Poll for the Word of the Century are in! enter for the results... | Simon Christie | 04/10/07 |
Welcome to the rejuvenated Bubbling Under. Here, we hope to introduce you to some of the new words emerging in English, or the sub-variety Bloglish, for those bloggers reading. | Simon Christie | 01/02/2007 |
The influence that the Internet now exerts on all walks of life has led to greatly increased opportunities — not least for nefariously inclined cybercriminals seeking to subvert the Net for their own gain, break into computer systems, or defraud the gullible. | Catherine Soanes | 01/10/2006 |
The debate about healthy eating and body weight has been cooking up a storm over the past few weeks. | Catherine Soanes | 01/07/2006 |
Barring the word metatarsal, the most prominent buzzword to arise so far from the media coverage of the World Cup has got to be WAGs or Wags. | Catherine Soanes | 01/06/2006 |
With the World Cup looming ever nearer, the beautiful game will be uppermost in the minds of many at present. | Catherine Soanes | 01/03/2006 |
The travel industry seems to be continually devising novel packages to tempt the more jaded tourist and at the same time other unconventional holiday trends are emerging, giving rise to some noteworthy new words. | Catherine Soanes | 01/02/2006 |
Offshoring has become so widespread that the term has begun to generate a whole 'family' of related words which feature '-shoring' as a second element. | Catherine Soanes | 01/12/2005 |
'Faux' is a word that's developing some interesting and entertaining new coinages this autumn. | Catherine Soanes | 01/11/2005 |
Acronyms are part of our daily lives, even if we don't always realize when we're using them, but what about backronyms or retronyms? | Catherine Soanes | 01/10/2005 |
Let's take a look at some of the words which have been invented or borrowed by growers and retailers to describe some of the new varieties of fruit and vegetables which will soon be available at a supermarket near you. | Catherine Soanes | 01/09/2005 |
The language and culture of Japan have enriched English with many words over the years, including karaoke, tofu, sushi, futons, and more recently sudoku. And now we have kawaii... | Catherine Soanes | 25/06/2005 |
Mobile phones and the technology behind them are becoming ever more sophisticated. Here are the latest developments from the 3-G box of tricks... | Catherine Soanes | 18/05/2005 |
Over recent weeks sudoku number puzzles have been cropping up all over the pages of British newspapers, broadsheets and tabloids alike, under a variety of names and spellings. | Catherine Soanes | 20/04/2005 |
It's often said that politicians inhabit a dog-eat-dog world, pursuing any tactic to remain overdogs in their sphere, but the newest canine buzzword in Britain is dog-whistle politics... | Catherine Soanes | 01/03/2005 |
No matter how many revolutionary vacuum cleaners he sells, James Dyson's wish, as stated in his autobiography, is "That one day, Dyson will replace 'Hoover' and become a noun, a verb...long after I am forgotten". | Catherine Soanes | 01/02/2005 |
More and more people are getting online - not just to search for information but actually to create their own Net content. These latest uses of the Internet are rapidly spawning a host of new words... | Catherine Soanes | 01/09/2004 |
Freeganism is a philosophy which promotes obtaining as much of one's food as possible from free sources, such as food thrown away by restaurants... | Catherine Soanes | 01/07/2004 |
From baseheads and junkies to stoners and schmeckers, there are many informal terms to describe the users of illegal drugs. A relatively new one is shroomer... | Catherine Soanes |
