Oxford English Dictionary takes up binge watching

In its latest update, the Oxford English Dictionary has wrapped its venerable arms around spoiler alert,binge

watching and Bechdel test, three phrases you’re likely to hear in heated discussions of movies, TV shows and popular culture.

Those three terms were among more than “900 new words, senses, and subentries” added to the OED in its June update, the dictionary announced.

The OED is famously a historical dictionary that uses citations to show when words and phrases entered English usage and how they have changed.

It traces spoiler alert (a warning to readers that an important detail is about to be revealed) back to a 1982 Internet discussion of “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.” (If you can cite an earlier written usage of the term, be sure to let the OED know. It’s always updating.)

An online discussion is also the earliest citation for binge watching (the act of watching multiple episodes of a show in succession): a 1998 post in an “X-Files” discussion group.

The Bechdel test, named for cartoonist Alison Bechdel, is a baseline way of evaluating the extent to which movies and stories marginalize women: To pass the test, a movie must meet three criteria: “(1) there must be at least two (named) women; (2) the women must talk to each other; and (3) they must talk about something other than a man.” Bechdel herself would prefer you call it the Bechdel-Wallace Test, because she developed those thoughts in a conversation with her friend Liz Wallace.

People love to argue about dictionary decisions, but mind your manners. The OED has added microaggression, too (tracing the word back to 1970).