Don’t be a chindhi, share your outlandish English slang

ENGLISH has been spoken across the world for hundreds of years – and now the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has launched a campaign to make sure its contents reflect the language’s global nature.

Eleanor Maier, associate editor of the OED, said it had “always been a global dictionary” but its expertise was slanted towards Britain and America because it was based in the two countries.

“As a dictionary we need to cover the types of English that people are speaking,” she said.

“We need to reflect the English that’s spoken and written – it’s spoken in South Africa, the Philippines, India, Singapore, Hong Kong – so we need to reflect those varieties.”

She added that the suggested words tended to be “colloquial” and the kind of language that would be met with “blank stares” outside the areas where it is common. “These are words that people are likely to use in speech a lot but which might not make their way into more formal English,” she said.

Participants are encouraged to use the hashtag #wordswhereyouare to add suggestions to the list.