| The venerable 20-volume
Oxford English Dictionary contains about 700,000 words, but the editors
recently realized they were missing one: Doh!
The cartoon character Homer Simpson's forehead-smacking lament
is one of some 250 entries being added today to the dictionary,
which is widely considered the leading authority on the English
language.
"Doh" is now defined as "Expressing frustration
at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned,
or that one has just said or done something foolish," according
to the new entry in the dictionary.
The Simpsons only popularized the term; it was actually used extensively
in the 1950s, the OED found. Although it is often spelled "D'oh,"
the dictionary chose to omit the apostrophe.
Other newcomers to the dictionary include cheesy, which means second-rate
or inferior; six-pack, meaning rippling abdominal muscles, and Bollywood,
which refers to the Hindi film industry based in Bombay, India.
"We'll have terms from immuno-biology to gangster rap,"
says Jesse Sheidlower, who is head of the project for North America.
The OED's staff of 50 editors is wading through popular culture
looking for new words and usages that merit an entry, as part of
its 8-year-old million updating project. It is the first complete
revision of the dictionary since it was completed in 1928.
"The principle way we [get new entries] is to have readers
look around the world for things that seem new or significant,"
says John Simpson, chief editor of the OED. Contributors have included
a Nobel laureate and an inmate at an insane asylum, among thousands
of others.
"We have about 200,000 example sentences coming into the department
each year."
Simpson (John, not Homer) and his colleagues whittle that list
down to the few that seem to have gotten a solid foothold in popular
usage. He says his job also gives him an excuse to watch a lot of
action films, soap operas and quiz shows, to look for more new terms.
"Many terms are much older than you think they are,"
says Sheidlower.
"Phat," for example, makes its debut in the OED today
as a slang term meaning cool.
But it has been African-American slang since at least the 1960s,
OED researchers found. The word even appeared with its present meaning
in Time magazine in 1963.
The dictionary contains some surprises for people who think they
are using the latest, cutting-edge jargon.
(Agencies)
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古老庄严的《牛津英文词典》（20卷）收录了约700，000单词。不过最近词典的编撰者发现漏掉了一个单词：Doh!
这个单词本是卡通人物荷马-辛普森拍脑门表达悔恨之情的口头禅，如今已经成为词典最新补充收录的250个新单词之一。要知道《牛津英文词典》可是英语世界最具权威的词典。
词典对 "Doh"所做的解释是："表达当发现事情朝坏的、不随人意的方向发展或某人说了傻话、做了蠢事时的情绪"（
"Expressing frustration at the realization that things have
turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or
done something foolish"）。
其实这个单词早在20世纪50年代就已经形成并被使用，直到辛普森把它当成口头禅， 才使"Doh"变得家喻户晓。
这次被收录的新词还包括 "cheesy" 二流的、低级的； "six-pack"，意思是腹部打褶的肌肉；
"Bollywood", 指位于印度孟买的印度电影业中心。
新词收录项目北美区负责人杰西-谢德罗尔说："我们要收录的新词从免疫生物学到匪徒脏话无所不包。"
《牛津英文词典》的50名编辑正在试图从流行文化中搜寻有收编价值的词汇和用法。这项工程是为期8年、耗资5,500万美元的词汇更新项目的一部分,也是该词典于1928年编纂完毕后的第一次完整的修订。
《牛津英文词典》总编约翰-辛普森说："我们收集新词的原则是让我们的读者关注世界上任何新的、有意义的事物。"
成千上万名投稿人中包括一名诺贝尔奖得主和一名疯人院里的病人。
辛普森先生说："我们每年收到约200，000个例句。"
约翰-辛普森和他的同事们把众多的例句中筛选出在现实生活中最禁得住推敲的句子。据称他为推敲这些新词观看了大量的动作片、肥皂剧和智力测验节目，真是工作娱乐两不误。
谢德罗尔说："一些词汇的历史比人们想象的要长得多。"
以"Phat"为例，"Phat"直到今天才被《牛津英文词典》作为一个俚语收录进来，意思是"很酷"。而词典的研究人员发现，至少在20世纪60年代，这个词就在非洲裔美国人当中作为俚语使用。当它在1963年出现在《时代》杂志上的时候，它的意思就和现在一样。
因此，《牛津英文词典》使那些自认为一直在使用最新、最时髦的词汇得人们着实吃了一惊。
(中国日报网站译)
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Updated: 2001-06-23 01:00