back to article What time is it Oxford Dictionaries? How about almost ‘beer o’clock’

The online tentacle of Oxford Dictionaries has earned itself some big up rispek from El Reg by including "beer o'clock" in its latest quarterly update of new terms muscling their way into our beloved lingo. As regular readers know, down here at Vulture Central beer o'clock is always, if it hasn't actually chimed, mere minutes …

  1. T. F. M. Reader

    Mx.?

    This was the most surprising inclusion for me. My first thought was that it stood for "Minx". Then I looked it up...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mx.?

      I was expecting NBD to be "nice but dim" - shows how happnin I am

      ;O)

      1. dotdavid

        Re: Mx.?

        A relative who shall not be named thought LOL stood for Lots Of Love in text messages. Would have led to some humourous misunderstandings I think.

        "Sorry to hear your cat died LOL"

        1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
          Devil

          Re: Mx.?

          You're related to David Cameron?

          http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/may/11/rebekah-brooks-david-cameron-texts-lol

          My commiserations...

    2. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Mx.?

      Motocross

  2. chivo243 Silver badge
    Coat

    can we get an addition?

    Beer thirty? or beer:30

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: can we get an addition?

      Damn, I forgot - "It's noon somewhere" I beg forgiveness...

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Pint

    Mr Farage will not be speaking to El Reg

    because you forgot to mention 'Brexit' alongside 'grexit'

    Is is Beer O'clock yet? Well somewhere the sun is past the yardarm so have one on me. I'll be supping some 'Surrey Nirvana' tonight.

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: I'll be supping some 'Surrey Nirvana' tonight.

      All out of "Gandalf's Memory Stick" and "Wizard's Sleeve" then?

  4. jake Silver badge

    Mkay ...

    ... was common around these here parts (SF Bay Area) in the 1960s.

    I got "beer o'clock" and "0-beer thirty" from my Uncles, who first ran across 'em at Pearl Harbo(u)r before the USofA entered WW2. I am certain they are much older than that.

  5. CAPS LOCK
    Joke

    English is rubbish...

    ... all this go-as-you-please language. I'm sure the Germans don't put up with people making up their own words?

    1. Graham Dawson Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: English is rubbish...

      You crack wise, but think of English if it had a wordstogetherstuckform. It would be a speech that greatlongwordenclosestuckmaked each time overgoingfolk had a newcraftwordneed for a notyetfeltthing.

      1. David Pollard

        Re: English is rubbish...

        It will be interesting if amanfromMars sees those examples.

      2. jake Silver badge

        @Graham Dawson (was: Re: English is rubbish...)

        "You crack wise, but think of English if it had a wordstogetherstuckform."

        Sez Grey Home David's Son ...

        1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

          @jake Re: @Graham Dawson (was: English is rubbish...)

          The point was that while English is a germanic language and retains a certain germanic character, due to the early involvement of the French and a mingling with the celts - promoting a healthy appetite for new vocabulary - it hasn't resorted to the extreme character lengths of modern high German.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: @jake @Graham Dawson (was: English is rubbish...)

            I know that, Graham. You know I know that.

            You've been reading me long enough, do I really need to add a TIC icon?

            "modern high German" is a nightmare. Don't believe me? Try translating English[0] technical documentation into it. Personally, I refuse ... Makes for more of a headache than trying to translate technical documentation into French, and then getting it past the French grammar Nazis.

            [0] Note that "Germanic" is not an actual language, rather it's a collection of kludges, like all modern languages (except French, apparently).

      3. GrumpenKraut

        Re: English is rubbish...

        > wordstogetherstuckform

        Marvel at that as well, IMO the hypen form is the best: midpoint vs. mid-point vs. mid point. Mkay?

        Grumpenland seems to leave wordstogetherstuckform in favor of words together stuck form, not really an improvement.

        (btw. a read the above as wordtogetherfuckstorm).

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: English is rubbish...

          wordtogetherfuckstorm

          upvoterated

    2. jake Silver badge

      @CAPS LOCK (was: Re: English is rubbish...)

      Of course not! In German, words make up themselves!

      1. GrumpenKraut

        Re: @CAPS LOCK (was: English is rubbish...)

        > In German, words make up themselves!

        Tzis ist incorrectenstein!

  6. Rikkeh

    Words they missed..

    Still no "shitgoblins" in there.

  7. Little Mouse

    "Beer O'clock is always mere minutes away"

    It's always ten-past Beer O'clock. Always.

    Cheers.

  8. BarryUK

    The OED has been embiggened again, huh?

    1. Down not across

      The OED has been embiggened again, huh?

      More like embuggered.

      Some of that drivel doesn't shouldn't get anywhere near a dictionary.

  9. Kubla Cant
    Headmaster

    I've always regarded the use of "awesome" to mean "really quite good" as indicative of a two-digit IQ. Now along comes the twee neologism "awesomesauce" as a marker for single-digit IQs.

  10. 27escape

    Its taken long enough

    Been in common parlance for many years, grexit for months and will be out of favour by next year!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cakage - I disagree

    Its not similar to corkage.

    Cakage is having cake; there being an amount of cake available in an establishment or the consideration of having cake soon and lots of it!

    'There will be cakeage', 'we had cakage', 'bettys tearooms is great for cakage'

    Compare with sconage, a specific form of cakage; 'we had total sconage' - we ate lots of (or large) scones

    1. Kepler
      Go

      Re: Cak[e]age - I disagree

      "Cak[e]age . . . . [i]s not similar to corkage.

      Cak[e]age is having cake; there being an amount of cake available . . . and lots of it!

      I couldn't agree more with Anonymous Coward (AC). I thought the same thing myself when I first saw this new word listed in the OED's blog article. I was sure it would mean exactly what AC said, and stunned to see it instead defined as a serving fee imposed when and where no cake is actually supplied at all!

      (Note also that, in regard to "corkage", the word itself only denotes the (modest) service of opening the bottle. The charge for that service is called a "corkage fee". (Duh!) This is not the only nor even the least of the flat-out, unambiguous, elementary errors made/contained in the article/blog entry.)

      Cf. signage (an ugly and unnecessary, relatively recent neologism with which I have not yet made my peace — yecch!), babeage, and — speaking of South Parkboobage! (As in the South Park episode "Major Boobage" — a briliant parody of the movie Heavy Metal.)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not this dic

    Is it just me, or are the frequency of these "[insert dictionary publisher here] announces latest buzzwords to go into their latest dictionary" press releases in disguise increasing?

    F*** off, we don't give a toss what tedious w*** you're including in your latest edition solely for the sake of getting a few column inches in the press and making yourselves look hip and streetwise like that Urban Dictionary thing your nephew used to add definitions of fictitious sexual acts to back in 2003.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The OED

    has become a joke...

    Not a funny hahah one either...

  14. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Glew

    A friend of mine (also happens to be my boss) thinks that his word 'glew' as in the light 'glew' in the dark should be acceptable. He's not winning the argument in the office so far so I thought I'd cast the net for opinion here :-)

    1. Kepler
      Meh

      Re: Glew

      Although I strongly favor lit over lighted (evidently both are acceptable, but "lighted" just sounds wrong!) — and certainly favor grew over growed! — I believe I must opt for glowed over glew.

      Just my two-cents' worth.

      (But your friend/boss certainly has a point!)

  15. Zmodem

    if it has pwn then it should have 1337

    1337 = elite, hackers used 1337 as rubbish encryption on telnet boards

    1337 = 3|_!73, |-|4(|<3|25 (_)53|) 1337 45 |2(_)|3|3!5|-| 3|\\|(|2`/|D7!0|\\| 0|\\| 73|_|\\|37 |304|2|)5

    http://www.robertecker.com/hp/research/leet-converter.php?lang=en

    1. Kepler
      Boffin

      1337

      "1337 = 3|_!73, |-|4(|<3|25 (_)53|) 1337 45 |2(_)|3|3!5|-| 3|\\|(|2`/|D7!0|\\| 0|\\| 73|_|\\|37 |304|2|)5"

      Although it says below (at the end of the URL that Zmodem included) that "lang=en", it reads more like lan=APL!

      (And yes, I do know what the line I quoted actually says — the same thing as the line before it, which I didn't quote — even though I never heard of Leet before today. I'm just saying what it looks like, at first glance.)

      .

      P.S. I agree entirely with Zmodem's point, that if the OED is going to include pwn as a word then it really ought to include 1337 as well.

      And it's funny and odd that in its definition of "pwn", the OED mentions gameplay but not hacking.

      1. Zmodem

        Re: 1337

        you can select basic 1337 from the drop down list on the website to get gaming 1337

  16. Kepler
    Headmaster

    OED, RIP (BFD?)

    I was going to make a pedantic little post complaining about Lester's usage and spelling.

    (He used usage when use was clearly called for — because his statement was about how frequently and extensively, and for how long, words are used, rather than about how they are used, or whether they are used correctly or incorrectly — and he misspelled it ("useage")!*)

    But then I made the mistake of reading the blog article Lester linked to. After I finished throwing up, I knew I had bigger fish to fry.

    What an unholy and infantile celebration of vapidity and illiteracy! Celebrating and memorializing usage errors by others while perpetrating several of its own!

    But I guess I should no longer expect discrimination or judg(e)ment from a source that mis-defines "cakeage", that doesn't know the difference between "corkage" and a "corkage fee", and that apparently thinks "derogative" is an acceptable alternative to "derogatory"! (Since when?)

    ("SJW . . . . is used derogatively . . . ." Ex(s)queese me? Derogatorily!)

    Today I am crushed. My worldview is shattered.

    .

    * That the OED might accept the spelling Lester used (even though its error-prone Web site does not!) — and not even classify it as variant! (at least according to what I read on line after Googling "useage") — is of no moment at all. The OED ceased to be authoritative in my sight earlier today!

    1. Kepler
      Pint

      Re: Lester

      P.S. Lester has proven his merit to me countless times, in countless different ways, over the past 15 years or so that I have been reading El Reg. The two piddling nits I picked above loom as nothing in my sight.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: OED, RIP (BFD?)

      The OED ceased to be authoritative in my sight earlier today!

      The OED never claimed to be authoritative. It is, and has always been, a descriptive dictionary. Its authority extends only to attempting to verify the authenticity of sources.

      And that's fine. Prescriptive dictionaries are fairy tales for fragile types who shiver in the bracing wind of actual usage.

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