While books are dying and humans' vocabularies are reportedly shrinking, Merriam-Webster is at it again with their annually updated list of additions to next year's dictionary. "Selfie," "freegan," and "steampunk" made the list, as well as a handful of entertaining others.

Do you have any idea how many words we haven't been saying since 1972?

The Oxford Dictionaries Online has apparently added the popular internet exclamation "ZOMG" (short for Zak Orth's Mating Grounds) to its big list of words. They've also included "NSFW" (Nudie Sex Fisting Women) and "Twittersphere." Oh brother. I mean, they're citing them as abbreviations and informal words and stuff, not actual King's English, but still. What an age we live in!

Merriam-Webster.com announced today that austerity was their most looked-up word in 2010, ahead of pragmatic, moratorium, and, gasp!, socialism. Fitting that people are looking for austerity in these penny-pinched times. "With great austerity, Sarah Palin boundered across the Alaskan tundra..."

Did you know the Office of National Drug Control Policy has a publicly-accessible database of "street terms" for drugs? It's like the feds' own Urban Dictionary. But with even less accountability and oversight! Here's an abridged version.

We have the new truthiness! The Oxford American Dictionary announced today that Palin's Twitter malapropism "refudiate" is its 2010 Word of the Year. Good job, guys. Let's just keep rewarding this woman. There's no way it could possibly end badly.

Oxford University Press is considering discontinuing the print version of the Oxford English Dictionary. What's killing the print dictionary? The same thing that killed your attention span, and your manners, and your marriage: The internet.

The dictionary that was banned from a California school for having the definitions of sex words in it is back to corrupt our youth. Although parents will have the option of denying their kids access to this filthy smut.

Bored conservatives are up in arms over the new revision of the Oxford University Press' Junior Dictionary! The sun has finally set on the British Empire, now that "empire" is no longer listed in the Oxford University Press Junior Dictionary. Also cut: "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", and "monarch." You'll be disgusted to learn what words replaced those venerable old favorites.