Merriam-Webster adds froyo and sriracha to its dictionary
This is the life cycle of a food trend: first, it starts bubbling up in cool boutique shops in New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco, and then every city in the U.S. has it. It goes mass-market, then there’s a backlash, and then a backlash to the backlash, and eventually, if it’s something truly enduring, it ends up where froyo finds itself today: in the dictionary.
The abbreviation for frozen yogurt, froyo — spelled exactly like that, no hyphen — a dessert that was stratospherically popular from 2006 to about 2012, is now a defined word in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of 250 new additions announced Monday. The definition notes that its first use was in 1976, and that it is “often used before another noun: a froyo shop; froyo flavours.”
It’s among many other food words that received the book’s official blessing Monday, and they’re a glimpse of food trends past and present, flavours high- and lowbrow, and culinary traditions from France to Asia.
Sriracha is another new entry to the dictionary, defined as “a pungent sauce that is made from hot peppers pureed with usually garlic, sugar, salt, and vinegar and that is typically used as a condiment.” The sauce has experienced a froyo level of overexposure, thanks to an abundance of sriracha products such as potato chips, lip balm and candy canes.
One more food entry that isn’t actually a food entry made the list, but it’s very appropriate for 2017: “word salad,” or “a string of empty, incoherent, unintelligible, or nonsensical words or comments.”