Dictionary’s new words for the ‘post-truth’ era

THE words “woke” and “post-truth” have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary as the changing political landscape gives rise to new terms.

Woke – used as an adjective to mean “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice” – was added after being popularised by supporters of the Black Lives Matter campaign.

Post-truth is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping political debate or public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief ”.

A new batch of colloquialisms and slang words have also been added, including “footless”, which could be used to describe an inebriated person as an alternative to “legless”, “swimmer”, meaning sperm, and to have a “canary”, meaning to lose one’s composure.

A new meaning of “thing” has also been added, to convey surprise or incredulity at a phenomenon, such as, “how can that be a thing?”

This has been traced back to an early episode of the American television series The West Wing.