More Tech Speak Makes Oxford DictionaryCut

Thx to the lexicographers at Oxford Dictionaries who added a fresh round of tech jargon to its online English dictionary, you can now look up words like "thx."

Some of today's (Feb. 22) additions will be familiar, such as "tweetable" and "social sharing," which refers to people's growing need to post every piece of daily trivia to the Internet. (Thanks for that Instagram of your sushi dinner last night.) You can probably guess at others, like "dumbphone," even if you don't use the term yourself.

But "touchles," for example, might not be as intuitive. According to Oxford, the term refers to gesture-control devices such as Microsoft's  Kinect  gaming accessory that uses a camera to interpret body motions for game-play.

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Still other entries might indeed have people turning to Oxford online to check definitions. "Cruft"? A new addition that means badly designed or unwanted software. And what about "range anxiety"? This term will surely be heard more frequently as electric cars become more common and drivers worry whether they'll make it to their destination before the  car's battery dies .

Each new word and phrase added to Oxford goes through a fairly rigorous assessment, whether it began as a suggestion from the public or if the Oxford team itself suggested the word. If a proposed entry is used by just one segment of the population, like young teens, it's disqualified. If it's a trademark, it must have broader use, such as generic use as a verb. (Have you  googled  anyone lately?)

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

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Oxford consults specialists when necessary, and the dictionaries' editors review proposed entries. Those that make the cut are added to the online dictionary, and later, to printed versions.

The quarterly updates may please Scrabble players hunting new words, but remember, just because a word has been blessed by Oxford Dictionaries, doesn't mean it's okay for Scrabble. For instance, Oxford added LOL back in 2011, but Scrabble Checker still says "no."

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