LOLZ: Scrabble stays dench, not ridic with obvs new words - and no shizzle

Some may think it is ridic but the evolution of language means that Scrabble has to keep up to stay dench - obvs. Lolz, shizzle and cakehole are among 6,500 new words added to the existing quarter of a million in the latest Collins Scrabble word list. A host of slang words used on social media, in texts and on the street are now available to fans of the traditional word game seeking to outplay their opponents. These include obvs (obviously), ridic (ridiculous), lolz (laughs), shizzle (form of U.S. rap slang), cakehole (mouth), and dench (excellent).

Dictionaries have always included formal and informal English, but it used to be hard to find printed evidence of the use of slang words. Now people use slang in social media posts, tweets, blogs, comments, text messages - you name it - so there’s a host of evidence for informal varieties of English that simply didn’t exist before.

Helen Newstead, head of language content at Collins

Other new words in the list reflect modern society, t rends and events, such as twerking, devo (short for devolution, as in Devo Max), vape (to inhale from an electric cigarette), onesie, shootie (fashionable shoe that covers the ankle), cakeages (restaurant charges levied for serving cake brought in from outside), and podiumed (often used at sporting events, particularly the Olympics). The new word list also recognises the role technology continues to play in our lives with the addition of facetime, hashtag, tweep, and sexting. Collins Official Scrabble Words is compiled using the Collins Corpus - the world’s largest language database - and includes words from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the UK and the USA all brought together in a single list.

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