It’s come to this. “Selfie”, the term for mobile phone self-portraits generally aligned with vain teenage girls, has now entered the lexicon and joins proper words like “forsooth”, “serendipity” and “horse” in the Oxford English Dictionary, otherwise known as the OED and grandfather master of all dictionaries. The inclusion reflects an acceptance of other tech-related words no one over the age of 20 thought were actually words, various fashion trends you’ll recognize from the past few years, and a wide and somewhat bewildering array of acronyms and abbreviations generated from text-speak. “Twerk” (the dance move most recently appropriated by Miley Cyrus) was included as well, along with “unlike” (in reference to withdrawing your social media approval), “fauxhawk” (it’s not like these are going away), and “srsly” (seriously?).

cakepop

The full list:

Here’s the full list of words most recently accepted:

Apls, A/W, babymoon, balayage, bitcoin, blondie, buzzworthy, BYOD, cake pop, chandelier earring, click and collect, dappy, derp, digital detox, double denim, emoji, fauxhawk, FIL, flatform, FOMO, food baby, geek chic, girl crush, grats, guac, hackerspace, Internet of things, jorts, LDR, me time, MOOC, omnishambles, pear cider, phablet, pixie cut, selfie, space tourism, squee, srsly, street food, TL;DR, twerk, and unlike.

What do you think about the addition of selfie? Only a matter of time? A helpful reference as millennials take over the world? Or is this the destruction of the English language as we know it?