In the novel I am currently reading, a teenager tells his grandmother she is phat. She is offended.
Like myself, she didn’t know that phat is slang for cool (also slang).
My grandson uses epic in his speech. Another word that is fairly new in our vocabulary.
Just recently, flatten the curve and social distancing have come onto the scene. Only weeks ago, they had no meaning.
As writers, we need to keep current on new additions to vocabulary and use them in our writing when appropriate.
The vocabulary we use is a subtle reminder to our readers just what time period we are writing about. It must be consistent with the setting and characters.
It would be ridiculous for an old western cowpoke to exclaim that a cattle drive was epic; or for a young girl living in this current decade to say that a boy she thinks is handsome is the bee’s knees.
Did you know there are an average of one thousand new words added to the dictionary each year?
Are you a logophile (word lover)?
How do you keep up on the current trends in vocabulary?