intrəˈdəkSH(ə)n

My blog for this semester will focus on words recently added to the Oxford Dictionary. My research has led me to a plethora of new words that are somewhat surprising but no doubt interesting and useful in terms of communicating the evolving feelings and ideas of our ever-changing society. A few of the words I plan on reporting on throughout the semester are mentioned here, my primary source of inspiration for this blog concept.

As a double major in Secondary English Education and Creative Writing, words are of great interest to me. I've been an avid reader since I was young, and even since I learned to read it seems that an unfathomable number of words have been added to our collective societal vocabulary. Recent trends in language have a huge impact on those who are submersed in today’s culture of abbreviations, slang, text-speak, and acronyms. Ultimately, I hope to prove that vocabulary isn't "lame" or "boring" or "for nerds" by highlighting how American culture and the English language have a symbiotic relationship.

Before delving into content, an important distinction must be made between the Oxford Dictionary (linked above) and the Oxford English Dictionary. While the two are quite similar and contain essentially the same words, ODO (Oxford Dictionary Online) focuses mainly on "modern meanings... current language and practical usage" and is updated frequently online. The widely-known OED has a greater focus in linguistic concepts, such as etymology. Stated more clearly on the OED's website;

"Both the OED and ODO contain a wealth of evidence from real English to show how words are used in context. In the OED each word meaning is illustrated by a set of quotations, spanning perhaps many centuries, from the earliest recorded appearance to the most recent recorded usages. In ODO, the evidence is derived from the 2.3 billion word Oxford English Corpus, a huge databank of 21st century English, and each word sense in the dictionary is linked to a set of sentences so you can see how people are using the language today."
(http://public.oed.com/about/the-oed-and-oxford-dictionaries/)

Therefore, I will combine research from both the ODO and the OED to create my Oxford Modern Dictionary. Comments and suggestions for words to be used in future blog posts are more than welcome!