We are providing a series of lists of neologisms in context for the benefit of teachers of English language, many of whom have asked us for some up-to-date lexical information that can form the basis of vocabulary teaching. Of course, new lexical information is available every day, in journalistic and other ephemeral text, but teachers do not necessarily have the time to buy newspapers and to find it.
Each list contains 'new' words from the Independent (pre-2000) or Guardian (2000-) newspaper. The words have been identified as being new by software developed by the Unit during the APRIL project.
According to our system, new words are those which have not occurred in previously processed newspaper text of the same type. They are therefore not all new coinages. The lists are the result of matching monthly chunks of newspaper text against each other chronologically since 1989.
The new words offered to you have been selected on an arbitrary basis, as 'interesting or amusing' examples. They have not been rigorously analysed, and so do not represent the original list in terms of proportion or lexical range.
Neologism Listings:
We should be very grateful for any feedback on the usefulness of this data. Responses may be sent to rdues @ bcu.ac.uk.
Also available: ALL neologisms occurring in April 1998, as part of our APRIL project.