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Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

The Latest Lingo

By Kathyrn Satterfield

Do you Google in the snain? Don't bother to look for these words in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Snain, meaning "a mix of snow and rain," never caught on. Google, meaning "to search the Internet," may be added in 2006.

Some 1,000 new words or usages enter the English language each year. Some go into the dictionary. Others fade from use. "Our language is a living thing," Jim Lowe, an editor at Merriam-Webster, told TFK. "It keeps growing."

Merriam-Webster first published the Collegiate Dictionary in 1898. Since then, at least 100,000 words have been added. As the world changes, we need new words to describe it.

The dictionary's editors look in every-thing from catalogs to comic books for the latest lingo. New words go on index cards that note when and where they first appeared.

Lowe reviews these words for the edition's annual updates. Every 10 years, the dictionary gets a total makeover. Lowe and the other editors review the one million or so new terms they have found. About 10,000 make it in. For a word to be added, it must show up regularly in a lot of places.

Lowe is no longer surprised by the words he finds. "When I first saw spam, I thought it was unusual," he says. "It's hard to associate meats with e-mail." But there it is on page 1,195, in black and white.

Next: Top 5 Most Searched Words