Two food-related Malaysian words have been added into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) – and it’s making us very hungry!
The words ‘mamak’ and ‘rendang’ are among 1,200 new entries in the latest edition of the Dictionary.
According to OED, ‘mamak’ and ‘rendang’ were among 500 “foreign” words widely used by people in several English-speaking parts of the globe.
But wait; those weren’t the only Malaysian words added to the dictionary this quarter.
Some of the words that we Malaysians are familiar with that were added into the OED include ‘kopitiam’, ‘atas’, ‘pancit’, ‘bodoh’, ‘ang pow’ and ‘Char Kway Teow’.
Among some of the most notable words added into the Dictionary this time around include several millenial slangs such as ‘YOLO’ (acronym for ‘You Only Live Once’), ‘Moobs’ (stands for ‘Man boobs’), ‘biatch’ and ‘clickbait’.
The OED also paid homage to British writer Roald Dahl, as the words ‘Oompa Loompas’ from his book ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ and ‘scrumdiddlyumptious’ from his book ‘BFG’ were added into the Dictionary.
Other words such as ‘uptalk’ (the rise in a voice’s tone at the end of a sentence as if asking a question), ‘fuhgeddaboudit’ (a famous saying in New York and New Jersey which means ‘forget about it’) and ‘yogalates’ (a combination of yoga and pilates) also made the cut.
The definitive record of the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary is published by the Oxford University Press and contains over 600,000 words and 3 million quotations.
