Opinion: Can be hard to keep up with language changes

I remember when I was a kid, an adult or two told me “ain’t” wasn’t a word. “It’s not in the dictionary,” they said.

I don’t remember ever looking it up to see if they were right, but I can say it’s in there now, along with who-knows how many other slang words that decorate our great American lexicon.

Every year, dictionaries add words and terms — to make them “officially” part of our language, I suppose. And, of course, all our “new words” say something about the twists and turns of our modern culture.

For example: “Nearlywed.” It’s a noun that refers to someone in a life partnership, and might even be engaged, but with no date for a wedding or intent to ever marry.

That’s one of 313 new entries, in addition to 130 new definitions and 1,140 revised definitions, added this year to Dictionary.com. The idea that we’d even need a word like “nearlyweds” is indicative of just how much the institution of marriage has been weakened.

In a way, I’m surprised it took so long for “nearlyweds” to become a word; it should have been invented in the 1960s, when “living together” became part of our society. So, let’s move on to another new word for the here-and-now:

“Pinkwashing — noun, an instance or practice of acknowledging and promoting the civil liberties of the LGBTQ+ community, but superficially, as a ploy to divert attention from allegiances and activities that are in fact hostile to such liberties.”

It joins “greenwashing,” “bluewashing,” “social washing,” “color washing” … geez, I guess “whitewashing” has about as many spin-offs as “Watergate” has.

Or how about this new word: “Hellscape” — for a place or time that’s “hopeless, unbearable, or irredeemable.” If there’s a “Heavenscape” then “landscape” must be simple purgatory.

But I digress. Back to the cultural ramifications of some of 2023’s new words:

“Digital nomad” can now be used to describe someone who works remotely while traveling for leisure. I’m almost turning into one of those, as I strived to figure out how to travel from here to my grandchild as often as I want while still getting my newspaper out every week.

Here’s one I cannot relate to “Cakeage — a fee charged by a restaurant for serving a cake brought in from outside.” I’m guessing it comes out of birthday party infractions, but on such things I’m clueless.

Here’s one I do get: “rage farming — the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster.”

Talk about a word for our times.

And one more new word to consider: “Latine — adjective, of or relating to people of Latin American origin or descent (used especially by Spanish speakers in place of the anglicized gender-neutral form Latinx, the masculine form Latino, or the feminine form Latina).”

Is that the preferred term now? I doubt there’s any sort of consensus among my New Mexico friends and neighbors on this one, but that’s understandable. Sometimes it’s hard enough just keeping up with the words we already know.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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