1106. We talk with Fiona McPherson, a senior editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, about the playful words that get added to the OED. We look at the dictionary's ongoing work to expand its coverage of World Englishes, and Fiona shares some of her favorite recent additions, including "waka jumper" from New Zealand politics and "Rolex," a term for a Ugandan street food.
1106. We talk with Fiona McPherson, a senior editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, about the playful words that get added to the OED. We look at the dictionary's ongoing work to expand its coverage of World Englishes, and Fiona shares some of her favorite recent additions, including "waka jumper" from New Zealand politics and "Rolex," a term for a Ugandan street food.
🔗 Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.
🔗 Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.
🔗 Subscribe to the newsletter.
🔗 Take our advertising survey.
🔗 Get the edited transcript.
🔗 Get Grammar Girl books.
🔗 Join Grammarpalooza. Get ad-free and bonus episodes at Apple Podcasts or Subtext. Learn more about the difference.
| HOST: Mignon Fogarty
| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475).
| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.
| Grammar Girl Social Media: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon. Bluesky.
Grammar Girl, I'm Mignon Fogarty, and just a heads-up that today's show was originally released back in November of 2024 as a bonus segment for people who support the show, the Grammarpaloozians.
If YOU like what we do every week and want to support the show — and get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes like this right away — become a Grammarpaloozian! Visit quickanddirtytips.com/bonus to learn more.
And now, on to the show.
MIGNON: Greetings, Grammarpaloozians! I'm here with Fiona MacPherson, a senior editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, working on new words. We just finished wrapping up talking about "beer" words for the main episode, and now we're here to have some extra fun. I think I want to start with the quiz.
You had all these "beer" words from the OED, and I thought, “Well, I wonder what's in the Urban Dictionary.” And I can tell you, there aren't many that we can share that are, you know, family-friendly. Not so much. But there were two that we could talk about. So the first one was “beeramid.” What do you think a beeramid is?
FIONA: I'm going to say it's a pyramid of beer. You know, you sometimes get those like champagne ones; they sort of cascade down. I'm imagining that but pints of beer.
MIGNON: Yes, actually. Well, it's the empty cans.
FIONA: Oh, it's the cans. Okay. So just after consumption.
MIGNON: Like college kids make. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, really good. And actually, I'm sorry for putting you on the spot here too. Like this is, I'm hoping the listeners can play along and also guess what it might be. And the next one, the only other one that we can talk about family friendly was “beer muscles.” So what, what are beer muscles?
FIONA: Okay. I can think of a couple of things it could be. I'm thinking about the whole idea of beer goggles, and that makes you imagine that other people are perhaps more attractive. So there could be an element of, I don't know, makes you think that you're more muscular, but I'm going to go with, it may not be real, but the apparent muscle mass that you get from habitual kind of drinking with your pint because it's like repetition, doing reps with weights.
MIGNON: Oh, wow. Yeah. Actually, your first one.
FIONA: Have I gone a bit crazy?
MIGNON: No, that's okay. Yes. Your first one was right, actually. It's the feeling of bravado or that you're extra bold and strong when you — I'm actually incredibly impressed that you got them both. I don't think I would have.
FIONA: I did not look them up either. I promise you. Yeah. I’m quite pleased.
MIGNON: Oh, no, she did not get the questions ahead of time.
FIONA: No, no.
MIGNON: Nice. Yeah. I mean, do you, I mean, do you ever, as an editor, do you look to the Urban Dictionary and how things show up there?
FIONA: Of course, because it's another source as well. So it's another, especially for maybe, I don't want to say transient language particularly, but certainly for maybe really modern slang, it's a good place to look to, to get an idea of what sorts of things people might be saying and give you, give you an idea of what it might mean.
Obviously, we then do our own research and we would, you know, look into this and find evidence because with a lot of these kind of things, as you said, people, they can put anything on there, and they can make things up, but it's really quite fascinating, especially when you hear, I don't know, some gosh, I'm going to say really old now, but when you hear some teenage slang, and you think, “What does that mean?”
And sometimes Urban Dictionary can be a really good way of just orienting yourself in, “Ah, okay, I see, that's what it means.” So, yeah, but it's another place to look to see how language is developing and how people are describing it as well.
MIGNON: Yeah, that's great. So one of the things that I've read about the OED recently is that you're doing a lot more work on World English, and that was something that was mentioned sort of in the context of the "beer" update too. So how is that changing? What's going on there?
FIONA: Well, the OED is always really, it's never just concentrated on English as it's spoken, say, in Britain, especially, or U.S., that kind of English, what we might think of as the more predominant varieties of it. It's always looked to describe English as it's used wherever in the world English is spoken.
So whether that be Australia, South Africa, Philippines, I think the very first fascicle of the OED, so when it was first published, the OED was done in slim volumes, which we called fascicles. And the very first one actually included a word that was used in the Philippines, in Philippine English.
And we've always done that, but again, because we have more resources now available, that can obviously increase because we have so much more access to things which have been published all over the world, in all parts of the world, and things which maybe hadn't been digitized before, but now we can actually search and look at.
So we've been able to increase that, but it's a continuation of what we've always done. And now what we're looking to do in every update we do, instead of maybe having one update a year where we concentrate on a couple of varieties of English as it's spoken elsewhere, you know, East Nigerian English or something like that, we're including with each update that we do a number of from different parts of the world as well.
So it's just a way again of, English is such a global language, you know. It’s not just the sort of preserve of one area. And if we're telling the story of language in a historical dictionary as we are, then these words are part of how English is used and how English is spoken. And so they completely belong, you know, in the dictionary alongside all of the other words.
So it's about broadening and doing more of it, but it's very much a continuation of what we've always done.
MIGNON: Yeah. So we had talked about “beeraroo,” which was from New Zealand, and “beerbop,” which was South African. I'm trying to see if we missed any other beer-related ones.
FIONA: I don't think we did with the "beer" ones, but for example, this, well I don't think we had any other "beer" ones.
We've added some words from Welsh English. We've added "Rolex," which is not from Welsh English. It's actually Ugandan. It's used in Ugandan English. Well, I mean, I'm not going to turn the tables on you and say, what do you think it is? I'll just tell you.
MIGNON: Well, it's not the watch, right?
FIONA: No, it's not the watch. Exactly. It's a Ugandan street food, type of a staple in Ugandan street food. And it's a kind of I suppose a playful … it's nothing to do with the watches. It's a playful twist on rolled eggs rather than anything to do with luxury watches. Yeah, and so that's one that we've just added. It has eggs in it, as you might expect. It's a kind of omelet and vegetables wrapped in a chapati and as I say, usually street food. So we've added that as well this time. So that's just another example.
MIGNON: So it's more of a play on the sound, sound of the words then? Etymology.
FIONA: Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's a sort of, I suppose, a humorous respelling after "Rolex," but it's from "rolled" and "eggs."
MIGNON: What are some of the other world English words that were in this update that are especially fun?
FIONA: We've added some from Welsh English this time as well. So, one of them I’ll try my best not to mangle the pronunciation, “Ych a fi” which is a Welsh expression to express disgust or disdain about something.
So that's one example that we've added. Also there's a Guyanese word, “towel,” which is slang for a $1,000 bill.
MIGNON: That makes laundry sound more fun.
MIGNON: How do we get from towel to money?
FIONA: Yeah, but a little bit, a little bit more expensive maybe. And if laundry isn't particularly your thing or thousand, or dollar bank notes on your thing, we've also added "waka jumper."
MIGNON: Oh, that sounds fun too.
FIONA: Which is, it's probably, well, it's nothing to do with clothes. It's New Zealand politics, and it's a clue word for a member of Parliament who moves from one political party to another during a parliamentary term. They are known as waka jumpers. Yeah. A “waka,” well “jumper,” obviously in that sense, it's going to mean someone who jumps from one party place to another.
"Waka" is a Māori word for canoe. So it's especially a canoe. It can be any type of Māori boat, but especially a canoe carved from a tree trunk. And then you are also, so that's originally what it meant. And then it can also be a broad Māori community or identity, associated with common ancestors who are thought of migrated to New Zealand in a particular canoe. So that idea of movement.
MIGNON: Ah, so it's not, it's not jumping from canoe to canoe. It's more like jumping from group to group. Group to group. Yeah. But that comes from the Māori idea of all arriving on a canoe.
FIONA: And from the actual boat, which is the, um, which is the earliest example. So idea of conveyance, some kind of vehicle. Yeah.
MIGNON: Oh, that's cool. I like that. Okay. Well, let's wrap up with your — we always ask everyone for book recommendations, something you've enjoyed recently. It can be anything, you know, I mean, it can be a language-related book, but I'd love, just love to hear about, you know, what novels you're reading, or what cookbooks you like, or anything.
FIONA: Okay. Right. Well, I've gone for three because I think you asked me for three.
MIGNON: Yes. I asked for three.
FIONA: Okay. So none of them are especially recent, but that doesn't matter. They're still books I loved. The first is Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life," and it's one of the most recent books that I've read. It came out in 2013, which slightly horrified me, but I read it more recently than that. And it's one that really stayed with me. It's one of those books where you can't wait to finish work or finish what you're doing because you want to get back to reading it. But by the same token, you almost don't want to read it because that's bringing you closer to the end, and then you won't be able to read it anymore.
So, it's got a very strange narrative structure. It has alternative storylines and all the possibilities that these, you know, that throws up. It wrong-footed me to start with because I read the start of it. And then it repeated it but with a different ending, this first part of it. And it wasn't until I kind of got myself, you know, “Oh I see what's going on here.” I really love the way she writes and that really drew me in enough to realize, “Okay I see what's going on, we're getting the same story, the same character, but a different ending to each of these little parts of her life.”
I just absolutely loved it. And it's a book I've bought as presents for several people. So I think that had to be a choice. I just, it blew me away, and it really stayed with me.
MIGNON: Yeah, sounds really different.
FIONA: It really was. Yeah, I'm probably, I'm not doing any kind of justice in how I'm describing it, but it's lots of alternate storylines, kind of, but "Back to the Future 2," which is not that great an analogy to make, although I absolutely love that film. But yeah, you've got to, it can be quite confusing as you realize that, “Ah, this is not what's actually happening, this is what if, a sliding doors moment, I suppose,” what if something else had happened, but it's absolutely fabulous book.
MIGNON: Nice, and you know when you buy it as a gift for someone, it has to be great.
FIONA: Exactly, exactly, but you've got to, you've got to slightly persevere at the start until you realize what's going on.
Secondly, I've actually chosen an autobiography, and I don't read that much nonfiction, but this is "Le Freak," which is the autobiography of Niall Rogers, who is the co-founder and still plays with the band Chic. And I've seen him live a couple of times, and he's absolutely, he's got this lust for life, this absolute exuberance, which completely also is mirrored in this book.
He's not had the easiest of lives, he had, you know, he's had quite a lot of heartache and hardship in his life, but it's fascinating hearing about the rise of disco, and how the role the band played in that, and then the part he's played in music, so much of the music that we all know and love, he's had some kind of production hand in it or has actually, you know, performed it. And even though he's had all this heartache, the absolute exuberance and the joyousness It comes through the page, and it's such a wonderful read.
MIGNON: Who would that be a good gift for?
FIONA: Anybody who's interested in music, I would say, honestly. But, even if you're, I don't know, you probably would want to be interested in music.
I mean, certainly biographies that I tend to read are people that I'm interested in, who I think have got an interesting story to tell. So I want to learn more about them. I may know a little bit about them, but this is the way of getting in.
I'd say anyone who's interested in music. Because even if you're not necessarily a Chic fan, chances are you'll be a Bowie fan or a Madonna fan or Daft Punk fan. He's had a hand in all of those artists’ work. As well as many others. I'd go with that.
And my last choice, and I have to be completely upfront, this is actually written by a friend of mine, okay?
MIGNON: Disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.
FIONA: Always full disclosure. And that is called "The Stillman" by Tom McCulloch. Now, the reason, when he wrote, and he was writing a book, and he wrote it, and then he gave it to me to read, and I remember being terrified that I wasn't going to like it because, you know, we can't love all the books, and I'm very much of the view that life is, life is too short. Okay. And there are already way too many books that exist that we're just not going to have time to read. So if you're not enjoying something, give up, find something else that you do love.
So I was worried about that because how do you turn around and say to a friend, “Eh, I don’t really like it.” But I needn't have worried because I have, I absolutely loved it. It's partly set in the Scottish Highlands, which spoke to me. I don't come from the Highlands, but so much of Scotland I recognised in it. I'm partly set in Cuba. And I just really, I really loved it, and yes, it was nice that a friend wrote it, but I would have loved it anyway. I was just glad to be able to truthfully say, “No, I really like what you've done here.”
MIGNON: That's such a relief. Is it a thriller? Is it a romance? What is it?
FIONA: No, I was going to say it's literary fiction, which of course is not really a great description for anything. There's a little bit of romance in there. It's very funny in places as well. Very, the Scottish humor really comes across. A little bit of, I suppose, a saga with a small S because it's about family, and the stillman of the title is someone who works in a distillery.
So it's about his life and how his past has had an effect on his present. And how those two things gel or don't gel or have shaped them in a way, yes. So, anyone who's interested in a good story, I suppose I would say.
MIGNON: Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so much. I always just love adding things, you know, to my to-be-read pile from our guests.
FIONA: Me too, me too. Although my pile is way too big, but still.
MIGNON: Yeah, same here. For sure. Yeah, well. Fiona McPherson, thank you again so much for joining us today to talk about all these fabulous words, and books, and life at the OED.
FIONA: It's been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.