New Words Added To Oxford English Dictionary

Twerking, the raunchy dance move performed by Miley Cyrus at the MTV VMAs is among the new words added to the Oxford English
Dictionary. Oxford Dictionaries Online said the word, borrowed from hip hop culture, had become
increasingly visible in the past 12 months.
Other words such as Omnishambles and Selfie also make their debut as part of the
dictionary’s quarterly update. Omnishambles was named word of the year by
the Oxford Dictionary in 2012. The word – meaning a situation which is
shambolic from every possible angle – was
coined in 2009 by the writers of BBC political
satire The Thick of It. Katherine Connor Martin from Oxford
Dictionaries said the word twerk had been
known colloquially in US hip hop culture for
around 20 years. “By last year, it had generated enough currency
to be added to our new words watch list, and by
this spring, we had enough evidence of usage
frequency in a breadth of sources to consider
adding it to our dictionaries of current English,”
she said. “There are many theories about the origin of
this word, and since it arose in oral use, we may
never know the answer for sure. “The current public reaction to twerking is
reminiscent in some ways of how the twisting
craze was regarded in the early 1960s, when it
was first popularised by Chubby Checker’s
song, The Twist,” she added.