Oxford English Dictionary, OMG! Wassup with these new entries?

A few months ago I went on a little rant about how silly it was that the New Oxford American Dictionary was adding words like “BFF,” “zombie bank” and “nom nom” to its definitions. But really, it was the American version, the same country that produced the all-you-can-eat buffet, ’80s hair band Poison and Charlie Sheen, so it’s not as though I had high expectations from the start.

But England? I expect way more from the country that was home to my beloved Jane Austen and still has the Queen Mum and residents with the loveliest accents ever. (Admit it Americans: They could be speaking utter rubbish and still sound smarter than we do.)

So when the Oxford English Dictionary, the most authoritative lexicon anywhere, recently announced the new additions to its good book, I was a bit gobsmacked.

The first new entry that caught my attention: OMG! the abbreviated phrase for “Oh, my God!” They explain the addition by writing that online “initialisms” are quicker to type, giving those texters and tweeters even more time to text and tweet meaningless things to one another.