Breaking News English

We all use them when we send messages; now they have been included in the edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). They are the online abbreviations OMG, “oh my God”; LOL, “laughing out ”; FYI, “for your information; and IMHO, “in my humble ”. The OED calls them “initialisms” because they are up of initials. Young people know and use thousands of these on social media sites like Twitter and when SMS texts. They are useful when there is a on the number of characters used in a message. An OED , Graeme Diamond, believes there’s more to initialisms than simply saving space in messages. He thinks young people use them to irony.

Mr Diamond, who is responsible for new words into the OED, said one of the initialisms, “OMG” was not so new as it was in a letter written in 1917. New entries in the OED include “ surfing” – the practice of your own name on the Internet, and the “five-second ,” that "allows for the eating of a delicious morsel that has to the floor, provided that it is retrieved within the specified of time". Lexicographers also decided that the term “muffin top” deserved an . This is defined as "a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a pair of trousers”. It’s also known as “spare tyre” or “love handle”. The dictionary has also included the heart <3 meaning "love".