Wia dis foto come from, Getty Images
-
- Author, Laura Devlin
- Role, BBC News, Cambridgeshire
-
“Skibidi”, “tradwife” and oda slang terms wey dey popular for social media dey among new words wey Cambridge Dictionary add dis year.
Skibidi mean nonsense, word wey one di creator of one viral animated video series for YouTube coin, while tradwife na short form for “traditional wife” – a married mother wey dey cook, clean and post on social media.
More dan 6,000 new words na im dem add, di words include those wey relate to tech giants and remote working.
“Internet culture dey change English language and di effect dey interesting to observe and capture am for dictionary,” na so lexical programme manager Colin McIntosh tok.
Di dictionary define Skibidi as “a word wey get different meaning like ‘cool’ or ‘bad’, or e fit use am as joke wey no get meaning”. Example of how you fit use na like dis “Which kain skibidi you dey do?”
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian show how she dey use di phrase wen she post one video on Instagram to show one necklace wey dem write “skibidi toilet” – di name of di YouTube series.
As well as new phrases, some short versions of existing terms dem add dem na “delulu” – dem play wit di word “delusional”, e get di same definition: wey mean to “believe tins wey no dey real or true, usually becos you choose to”.
Sake of di increase in remote working since di pandemic words like “mouse jiggler” – wey be device or piece of software wey pipo dey used to make am seem like say dem dey work when you no dey work – also gain dia place for di dictionary.
Some ogbonge terms like “broligarchy” dem add am too. Dem Merg”bro” and “oligarchy”, e mean “a small group of men, especially men wey own or dey involved in a technology business, wey dey extremely rich and powerful, and wey get or want political influence”.
Dem use am to describe tech leaders Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg wey dem bin attend Donald Trump inauguration for January.