The old fuddy, duddy looks forward to the day Merriam-Webster comes out with its new terms that have to be defined and it was busy this past year as it announced 850 new additions to its online dictionary on Monday.
Among them was the term dumpster fire which Merriam-Webster defines as “an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence: disaster.” And yes I think we can credit Millennials for making dumpster fire a term Merriam-Webster had to include as it has been Millennials who have made that term a part of our Lexicon in recent years, although I don’t think anybody uses the word Lexicon any more.
Not surprising many of the additions made by Merriam-Webster can be credited to Millennials including glamping, a word I never heard of until now which I’m a little embarrassed to admit to since glamping is basically camping — but with all the amenities.
Actually glamping isn’t camping at all, in my mind — that’s called going to a resort. I went camping once — they used to call it roughing it — where I actually slept on the ground and I never did that again.
Other additions include hate-watch, which I think is pretty self-explanatory, in my day we called it rooting against somebody, and welp, which as I understand is just another way of saying well, there’s nothing more to say.
Evidently this term goes all the way back to “Dumb and Dumber,” as Jim Carey apparently used it in that movie. I do believe the phrase “All I Need” became really popular after “The Jerk,” which was basically my generation’s “Dumb and Dumber.”
Sadly, at least in this old fuddy, duddy’s mind, these terms are here to stay as those at Merriam-Webster say they’re careful only to add terms that are here to stay, so they’ll never have to remove them from their list.
Welp, I guess there’s nothing more to say.
— Charles Whisnand
