Oxford dictionary adds trendy new words

The New Oxford American Dictionary released a new edition featuring a slew of popular jargon and texting abbreviations, including bromance and BFF ("best friend forever"). Even LBD, for the perennial "little black dress," makes the cut.

Now in its third edition and latest update since 2005, the venerable dictionary also endorses trendy terms such as social networking, lipstick lesbian, staycation, and, to pay homage to the World Cup games, vuvuzela. New words also address concerns about the environment (carbon offsetting, green audit, carbon credit ), government activities (waterboarding, exit strategy), and technological terms (cloud computing, hashtag, tag cloud). Even texting abbreviations such as TTYL ("talk to you later") and LMAO ("laughing my ass off") are included, as is unfriend (deleting someone as a friend on a social network such as Facebook), which the dictionary named its word of the year in 2009. The 2010 update, published by Oxford University Press, includes more than 2,000 new words, phrases, and senses.

In Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary latest edition, new additions include flash mob, reggaeton, webisode, and vlog. Several miscellaneous terms have been added including memory foam and zip line. The Oxford English Dictionary also adapted to recent trends by adding new words such as de-friend, chillax, and micro-blogging to its latest 2010 edition.

To see a sample of new words and their definitions in the New Oxford American Dictionary, visit http://blog.oup.com/2010/09/noad3/