The new Oxford Dictionary is out, which means new words and phrases, most, of them, alas, not ones to really welcome: vuvuzela, climate change, credit crunch, toxic debt. But there are a few fun ones:
To balance them out among the 2,000 or so new items there are a few more left-field choices.
Among them are cheeseball, which refers to someone or something lacking taste, style or originality, and the more disturbing phenomenon of hikikomori, the Japanese word for the acute social withdrawal that occurs in some teenage boys.
More words, just what we need. In case you missed the milestone, the English language passed the million-word threshold on June 10, 2009.
