"Crowdsourcing," "mouseover," "big data," "redirect" and "e-reader" are among the tech terms that made the cut in this year's version of The Oxford English Dictionary, while "follower" and "tweet" will be given expanded definitions to accommodate their associations with Twitter.
The tech terms are among 1,200 words out of a total of 823,000. In a blog post announcing the new entries, the OED acknowledges that it has been using crowdsourcing techniques since the 19th century, but has only now seen fit to include the word. According to the dictionary's editors, that term was coined by Jeff Howe in Wired in 2006.
Not all the new terms were tech-related. The economic times gave us "fiscal cliff" and "pay day loan" -- a small short-term loan at a high rate of interest to cover expenses until the next paycheck -- and, somewhat relatedly, "handyman special." Other additions were more random, including "flash mob" and "sega," a dance from the Mascarene Islands that's unrelated to the now-defunct gaming console), as well as "fascinator," a woman's decorative headpiece.
The 2013 entries follow others in recent years including "ZOMG," "Twittersphere," "retweet," "sexting" and "OMG."