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Mouse potatoes joined couch potatoes, google officially became a verb and drama queens finally found the limelight when they crossed over from popular culture to mainstream English language. The mouse potato (who spends as much time on the computer as his/her 1990s counterpart did on the couch), the himbo (attractive, vacuous -- and male) and the excessively emotional drama queen were among 100 new words added to the 2006 update of America's best-selling dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. The Internet search engine Google also found its way into the dictionary for the first time as a verb, meaning to find information quickly on the world wide web. New words and phrases from the fields of science, technology, pop culture and industry are chosen each year by Merriam-Webster's team of editors after months of poring over books, magazines and even food labels. "They are not tracking verbal language. They are looking for evidence that words have become assimilated into the written English language," said Arthur Bicknell, senior publicist with Merriam-Webster. "Unfortunately with slang words by the time it has become assimilated it probably isn't cool anymore." Bicknell said. Other words making their debut this year were soul patch (a small growth of beard under a man's lower lip), unibrow (two eyebrows joining together) and supersize -- the fast food industry phrase for extra large meals. The technology world contributed ringtones (changeable incoming cellphone call signals) and spyware (software installed in a computer to surreptiously track a user's activities) while biodiesel and avian influenza came from the world of science. America's first dictionary -- Noah Webster's A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language -- was published 200 years ago and also introduced a crop of fresh words that have now become familiar. Those "new" words in 1806 included slang, surf, psychology and, naturally, Americanize. |
Mouse potato（網蟲）跟couch potato（電視蟲）走到一起；google正式成為一個動詞；drama queen（小題大做、大驚小怪的人）終于得到關注。這些詞語終于登堂入室，從通俗文化行列轉入英語主流語言。 Mouse potato（“網蟲”，像20世紀90年代的電視迷一樣迷戀電腦的人）、himbo（徒有外表卻無內涵的男人）、過分情緒化的drama queen等100個新詞被收入2006年新版的美國暢銷詞典《韋氏大詞典》中。 互聯網搜索引擎Google也首次作為動詞入選詞典，意思是"在互聯網上快速查找信息"。 每年，《韋氏大詞典》的編委都要花上幾個月的時間在書、雜志、甚至食品標簽中搜羅，選出科學、技術、通俗文化及工業領域的一些新詞和短語收入詞典。 《韋氏大詞典》高級推介人亞瑟·比克內爾說：“編輯們搜羅的目標不是口頭語言，他們找的是那些已被用于書面語的詞匯，而且要有實例為證。” 比克內爾說：“不幸的是，那些已被書面語吸收的俚語可能就不再那么'酷'了。” 今年入選詞典的新詞還有soul patch（男人下唇上長的一小撮胡子）、unibrow（左右眉毛長在一起）和supersize（超大型快餐）。 技術領域的新詞有ringtone（手機鈴音）和spyware（安裝在電腦上用于監視用戶活動的間諜軟件）；科學領域的新詞則包括biodiesel（生物柴油）和avian influenza（禽流感）。 美國第一部詞典--諾亞·韋伯斯特先生的《簡明英語詞典》于200年前出版，當時收入其中的一批新詞如今已為大家十分熟悉了。 那些于1806年入選的“新詞”包括slang（俚語）、surf（沖浪）以及naturally（自然地）、Americanize（美國化）。 |
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