If it's just made the Oxford dictionary, it's behind the curve

THE COMPILERS of the Oxford English Dictionaryfinally declaring that the term "muffin top" was worthy of inclusion was a little discomforting – somewhat like your dad belatedly deciding that "whassup!" is a phrase worthy of repeated, loud public use.

You find yourself wondering: do these people get out during their lunch breaks? Do they not read Heat? Do they deliberately wait until a phrase is very five-years-ago before adding it to their tome? Well, yes. The OED's criterion for entry is that a so-called neologism must be in use for at least that length of time – and in general use, not just as a colloquialism. Because, once added, it cannot be taken away. A woman may shed her muffin top, but it is now captured for the ages.

How is storming (as in a storming performance) only now in there? Or lashed, meaning drunk? These have joined other neologisms – sexting, wags, ego-surfing, domestic goddess – that, in internet terms, are already fossilising, the decaying corpses of a language that picks up, creates and discards at an extraordinary rate, but which builds layer upon layer.

This, though, is what the OEDhas always done, in the understanding that it is always behind the curve (a phrase it accepts). It moves at a pace that appears a little relaxed. Its first edition arrived in 1932, its second in 1989. The new edition has now reached R, which would sound more impressive if the project hadn't started at M.

The reason it started at M? Because A, as the first step in the lexicological journey, was so messed up by the original editors that it will take years to rectify.

It seems such a maddening, old-fashioned process. In 22 years of preparing the new edition, 300 academics have completed less than a third of it. It is estimated that the book will finally be completed in 2037 at a cost of €39 million.

This doesn’t quite match the epic nature of the Royal Irish Academy’s historical dictionary of the Irish language, which was begun in 1976 and as of last year had not yet reached B.

Ultimately the new edition of the OEDwill involve half a century of work. You will be able to download it in seconds. And, as with now, you won't even have to read it. The planet will do that collectively, and pick out the important bits for you.

Since 1999, meanwhile, the Urban Dictionary, an online lexicon of slang compiled by everyone and anyone, has compiled 5.6 million definitions (though many are duplicates). You look up muffin top, and you get page after page of entries when one is clearly enough. Meanwhile, if you google (the OED accepts the verb) muffin top you’ll get several definitions, a few images of women in unforgiving clothing and even, for comparative purposes, a picture of a muffin beside an exposed waist.

And the first result is not from a dictionary but from Wikipedia, which also has a picture of some unwitting model. (This is as close as you can get to the realisation of the old insult that “when you look up idiot in the dictionary there should be a picture of you”. In fact, when you google “idiot” you are presented with an image of George W Bush – but I digress.)

Until 15 years ago, if you picked a dictionary off the shelf in a search for authority, or merely some random definition to tickle your curiosity, you were reliant on whatever was passed fit to squeeze into that finite space. The idea persisted that a word wasn’t a word until the dictionary said so.

Now, though, we are in the midst of a linguistic free-for-all, moulded and defined by the collective, by professionals and amateurs, enthusiasts and passers-by, pedants and vandals. And the result doesn't simply reflect the fluidity of language; it matches and, at times, surpasses the interconnection with which the OEDis most concerned.

When asked by The Irish Timesto pick the one book he would like everyone to read, John Banville recently chose the dictionary, particularly the "capricious" but occasionally poetic Chambers 20th-Century Dictionary, as offering "hours of fun and instruction, the world's best book, and every home should have one". Yet the hours of fun, the linguistic byways, the humour, the poetry, the examples and the etymologies are already in almost every home, and increasingly in every pocket. Google offers spellings and countless other websites offer definitions, including those of words newly formed or suddenly ubiquitous. And much of this content is being compiled, ordered and edited by millions, in a way that is innovative, rewarding and, surprisingly, accurate.

It all threatens the dictionary's role as arbitrator, although even the OEDdoesn't claim the authority that others invest it with. In any case, there seems to be something knowing and deadpan about the inclusion of this new usage for tragic: "a boring or socially inept person, especially who pursues a solitary interest with obsessive dedication."

shegarty@irishtimes.com, twitter.com/shanehegarty