7 words to add to your vocabulary

Here are seven words the website Grammary says have been added to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. All are from Internet jargon.

See if you either understand them or have ever used them. Hangry

adjective; What it means: The feeling of anger or irritability you get when you’re hungry.

Where it comes from: Although the Internet has fueled this word’s recent rise in popularity, it was first printed in London Magazine in 1992.

I’ve never heard of this word. Bougie

adjective; What it means: A disparaging term for people obsessed with wealth or its trappings.

Where it comes from: This shortened form of bourgeoise

I’ve never heard of this word, either. Predictive

adjective; What it means: Describes something that is generated based on predictions made automatically (often by some sort of algorithm).

Where it comes from: “Predictive” as a general adjective has existed since 1637! This more specific use in phrases like “predictive text” has been much more recent, likely coming into fashion in the ‘00s.

I did know this one. Guac

noun; What it means: It’s just guacamole. That’s all.

Where it comes from: This popular abbreviation was first used in 1983 — the same year that the first mobile phones were released.

I did know this one, too. Instagram

verb; What it means: To post something to Instagram.

Where it comes from: As long as Instagram has been a social network, this has been a verb. (Which means it was first used just eight years ago!)

I do know what an Instagram is, but I’ve never used it as a verb. Time suck

noun; What it means: An activity that takes a lot of time you could have used to do more productive things.

Where it comes from: Merriam-Webster charts this word all the way back to 1991, which was also the year the Internet gained its first website. Coincidence?

The Internet has been sucking time ever since.

There are people (and I may be one of them) who believe the population has become stupider since 1991 because most of the stuff on the Internet is, in fact time suck. TL;DR

noun; What it means: This abbreviation stands for “too long; didn’t read.” It’s used to summarize the key point of a long text.

Where it comes from: According to Merriam-Webster, tl;dr (along with its acceptable alternatives TL;DR and Tl;dr) started appearing in the early ‘00s on news sites, where it remains popular to this day. I hope they don’t start using TL;DR to describe this newspaper column.

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Which slang word do you think should be added to the dictionary in 2019? Let us know in comments, if you will, on the Internet.

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(Information courtesy of Grammary).