Collins has added about 6,500 words to its Scrabble Word List, including such slang terms as emoji, bezzy, ridic, obvs, and lolz.
"The Internet age has revolutionized the inclusion of slang in dictionaries and Collins' 'Official Scrabble Words' is no exception," Helen Newstead, head of
language content at Collins, said, according to Agence France‑Presse. "Now people use slang in social media posts, tweets, blogs, comments, text messages, you name it, so there's a host of evidence for informal varieties of English that simply didn't exist before."
The new entries include high-scoring words such as “quinzhee,” an Inuit snow shelter, and “schvitz,” to sweat.
But not everyone is thrilled with the changes.
“A lot of tournament players are not particularly happy about the new words that are being included. They seem very artificial,” Sue Bowman, membership secretary of the
British Association of Scrabble Players, told The Telegraph. She called the new words “an abuse of the English language.”
“It is mainly youth culture and American influence. Each generation has had its own slang that becomes part of the common parlance. With time, I suppose some of these words will. I am not a great fan of textspeak.”
The new additions are part of the first update since 2011 to the Collins list, which includes words from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the
United States, the BBC reported.
Twitter users seemed irritated by the additions.
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