Vuvuzela enters the dictionary

The World Cup, global warming and the credit crunch have all inspired the latest additions to the English language.

The vuvuzela, the horn instrument which provided the soundtrack to this summer's football extravaganza in South Africa, is one new entry in the Oxford Dictionary of English, which is based on how language is really used.

The battle to deal with climate change has given us carbon capture and storage - the process of trapping and storing carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels - and geo-engineering - manipulation of environmental processes in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.

The credit crunch has introduced toxic debt to the language - debt with a high risk of default - and quantitative easing - the pumping of new money into the national supply by a central bank.

Cyberspace produces a constant supply of words and phrases. The dictionary now offers social media - websites and applications used for social networking - and microblogging, or posting short entries on a blog.

In all there are more than 2,000 new items in the third edition of the dictionary, which was originally published in 1998.

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