Opinion Cambridge dictionary’s latest additions: A little delulu

English, as the kids might say, is not Englishing. Or so it seems, given the baffling rate at which new words are being coined on TikTok, Discord and other online platforms crowded with Gen Z and Gen Alpha users. The effort of keeping up with these neologisms, akin to emptying a river one teaspoon at a time, may defeat many in the millennial generation and older, which is why the attempts of venerable institutions like dictionaries seem especially valiant.

The most recent example is the Cambridge Dictionary’s inclusion of words like “skibidi” (cool or bad or, if used as a joke, no meaning at all), “delulu” (delusional) and “tradwife” (married woman who proudly stays home, cooks, cleans and posts about this life on social media). The dictionary’s editorial team has defended the new inclusions against critics who may dismiss them as slang, arguing that they’re not just a passing linguistic fad and that they only add words with “staying power”.

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Online cultures are changing the language faster than ever — not only because at least two generations today have no idea what a world without the internet might look like, but also because the reach of the world wide web has made the mainstream more thoroughly global. This, ultimately, may be precisely what will stymie efforts to formalise neologisms today: If a word is quick to catch on, especially with older generations, it is also quick to be dropped by those who coined it, thus ensuring its obsolescence. If words like “YOLO” (“you only live once”, added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016) and “fleek” (“perfectly done or exactly right”, added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2021) now seem like fossils preserved in amber, they only underscore the suspicion that the Cambridge Dictionary may be more than a little delulu about the staying power of its new words.