WHAT DO the following words mean? Blabber, melly, dawicki and zapper. If you are heavily into slang, then you will know they all refer to the TV remote, along with numerous other slang words. There are even more ways of saying sorry, one being ?soz?. If you get a fudgenugget, don?t assume that it?s some kind of sweet, it actually means an insult. That?s according to the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, which was released last week. Linguists studied hundreds of newly invented slang words, now in everyday use, and discovered 57 words for a remote control. The experts put the prevalence of slang down to what they call ?the global domination of the English language?. They found that slang is flourishing across all social groups. As Tony Thorn of King?s College, London, the author of the Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, said in an interview: ?Once associated with enclosed communities, such as the prison, army barracks, factory floor and older public schools, more recently, slang has escaped its boundaries and is running wild.?
The latest edition of the dictionary features so-called kitchen table lingo, a category of informal words and phrases used by families. The researchers also found that teenagers have also introduced their own slang terms, which include ?floordrobe??for the place where clothes are stored in a teenager?s bedroom, ?grooglums??for the bits of food left in the sink after washing the dishes, and ?gruds? for underpants. According to the research, people are now more than likely to ask for ?splosh?, ?chupley? or ?blish? when ordering a cup of tea. The new dictionary also celebrates abbreviations used in text messages, such as YOLO, meaning You Only Live Once, and TBDL for Too Boring, Didn?t Listen. For Web surfers, here are some tips for the new slang being used?boyf is shorthand for boyfriend, while hubz is slang for husband. These are mostly abbreviations created by young adults, and these have made it into normal exchanges and quite a few are phonetically adjusted like ?nim-nim-nim?, which refers to a boring conversation, or meh, which is a verbal shrug of indifference like ?whatever?. Then there?s ?totes devz?, which is short for totally devastated, and the one that?s entered the urban dictionary, ?photobomb?. It means to unexpectedly jump into the frame of a photo being taken, the latest example being Brit actor Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays Sherlock in the TV series) at the Oscars awards evening, waving his arms in the background while the photographer was taking a picture of the band U2, which performed at the event. The photobomb has literally exploded, and gone viral.
