What a word’s worth

How much time should it take for a phrase to graduate from street slang to OED entry?

Words. words, words ... when can they said to be in common usage? Lee Hoagland / The National

The Oxford English Dictionary may originate from an old and musty university city, but the people who compile it are required to be up to date with the way the language changes. However, it seems that every time they issue an update, there’s a minor controversy about one or more of the new inclusions.

The latest revision has about 1,000 new words or phrases, including a few that will have some readers scratching their heads – even though they’ve been in popular use in some circles for many years. Among them are glamping, an abbreviation of “glamorous camping” that dates back to 2005, and bovver, a variant of bother made famous in 2004 by British comedian Catherine Tate, whose schoolgirl character Lauren Cooper would shrug her shoulders when challenged about her behaviour and say: “Am I bovvered?”

Why the decade-long delay? Perhaps the OED wants to be sure that any new word is not just a flash in the pan (a phrase that, according to Oxford, has been around since the 17th century).