Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report

Susie Dent harvests a load of linguistic produce that's green, overripe and everything in between.

It was ghetto fabulous in 1996, and it was green in 1971. In 1961 it was awesome, and in 1956 it was sexy. In 1948 it was cool but in 1926 it was kitsch. In 1904 it was hip. These are in a list of buzzwords for each of the last hundred years, each of which showed up for the first time in that year, or was used for the first time in a special context, like "sexy" used for "interesting". The year-by-year listing, admittedly subjective because there are so many new words being formed every year, appears in _Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report_ (Oxford University Press) by Susie Dent, a snapshot of our vivaciously growing English language. While there are those who would favor some sort of language police and a recall to some mythical golden age when grammar was universally used, words were not fads, and meaning was unvarying, Dent's book shows that this never will happen and never has. A funny volume, with chapters on the newest language of business, food, politics, sport, and more, the book will please anyone interested in words, and increase any reader's vocabulary, but perhaps only with ephemerally useful phrases. After all, not all the words here are quite tiddly-om-pom-pom (1909). New words are largely reinventions, like "sexy" for "interesting." In the _Oxford English Dictionary_, which is of course referred to here often, one percent of the words are completely new, the rest being adaptations of some older form, or blends. There are some new coinages that are borrowings of a fashion anyone would recognize, like adding "chic" to a word (as in "shabby-chic"). The snapshot of language here reflects that because of completely new interests (like computer role-playing games), new media for language spread, and the adaptation of English in other countries and cultures, this is a particularly colorful time for word changes. If you like computer games or role-playing games, you may be a "gamer", for instance, but if you prefer your role-playing to be in the flesh, you are a "larper," one who enjoys Live Action Role Playing games. (The other word in the book's title, shroomer, means one who uses hallucinogenic mushrooms, or more innocently, one who gathers wild mushrooms for the table.) As shown in many chapters, the new words are not at all slang, but there is a chapter specifically about slang, with a whole page devoted to the noun, adjective, and verb "bling". Even "post-bling" is now being used. American readers should know that _Larpers and Shroomers_ concentrates some of its pages on new British terms with which not even the hippest American will be familiar. Most of the book, however, reflects new forms of the language with which the world is doing most of its business and writing most of its web pages. It is thus a useful work for anyone who uses the language. Browsers are apt to pick up some lively new words, but also learn about some that are not so new; "Generation X" actually dates from 1952, for instance. Here