GR8 news -- txt MSGS r now in the COD. Confused? Help is at hand. It means "Great news -- text messages are now in the Concise Oxford Dictionary". In Britain alone, more than one million mobile phone text messages are sent every hour, so the Concise Oxford Dictionary has decided to include the shorthand language in its revised edition published on Thursday. SMS, or short messaging service, has been given its own appendix. The section features dozens of examples of the abbreviations which have become a second language to millions of young people. "We have been monitoring the phenomenal growth of text messaging with great attention: its influence is now such that we felt it was time to treat it as an integral part of English," said the dictionary's publishing manager, Judy Pearsall. Examples that have found a place in the dictionary include BBLR (be back later) and HAND (have a nice day). They are joined by so-called emoticons -- representations of facial expressions such as
:-) and :-( The latest edition also includes new words judged to have entered everyday conversational use. Minger, meaning "an unattractive or unpleasant person" makes an entry, along with chowhound, defined by the dictionary as "a greedy person", and tweenies, "children trying to appear older than they are". (Agencies) | GR8 news -- txt MSGS r now in the COD. 知道它是什么意思嗎？懵了吧，還是告訴你吧，"重大新聞--《簡明牛津詞典》收錄了大量手機短消息"（"Great news -- text messages are now in the Concise Oxford Dictionary"）。 僅在英國，每小時就有一百萬多條移動電話短消息被發送出去。于是《簡明英文詞典》決定在其周四出版的修訂版里收錄這些縮略語。
詞典專門增設了SMS（即手機短消息服務）用語附錄。這個部分收錄了大量的縮略語，而這些縮略語幾乎已經成為數以百萬計的年輕人的第二語言。
詞典出版經理朱迪-佩薩爾說："我們一直非常關注這些正以驚人速度涌現出來的縮略語。而這些縮略語已經具有相當的影響力，我們理應把它當作英語不可缺少的一個組成部分。"
詞典收錄的有象BBLR (be back later) 和 HAND (have a nice day)這樣的縮略語，也有一些所謂的"由字符組成的面部表情用語"，如:-) 和 :-( 最新修訂版還收錄了一些被認為已經深入到日常用語中一些新詞。 如，Minger，意思是"不招人注意、不討人喜歡的人"； chowhound，的解釋是"貪婪的人"； tweenies，的定義是"試圖讓自己顯得比實際年齡老成的孩子。" (中國日報網站譯) |
Updated: 2001-07-23 01:00
