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What's a himbo?

© Sandra Linville

The other day I was thinking about how nice it would be to have broadband and the term DSL came to mind. We discuss DSL quite often at our house, but it occurred to me that I wasn’t completely sure what DSL represented. I reached for my latest edition of Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (2001-2002) to see if it truly “recorded the latest developments in the English language” as indicated by Random House. I found what I needed. DSL means Digital Subscriber Line.

I like a dictionary that keeps up with the very fluid English language and this one does so extremely well. This edition features more than 207,000 definitions and includes such words as: B-to-B, bazillion, cybersquatting, mirror site and vortal.

The English language is so fluid, how do the Random House editors know when to hold them and when to fold them – how do they know which word is going to stick around for awhile?

According to Wendalyn Nichols, editorial director of Random House Reference, the editors read through a multitude of sources to identify new words. “New words can come from wherever language happens – books, magazines, on-line, radio, newspapers, even songs and conversations,” Nichols writes. “Many people also send us new words or meanings in the mail.”

As of January 2001, people have nominated words for entry into the new edition of the dictionary through the Web site, www.randomwords.com in the “Send Us New Words” section.

“We have a large collection of words we’re tracking,” Nichols writes. “Whenever we come across a new term or meaning, we put it in our database, along with its citation. All year long, we look at this pool of words and evaluate them for inclusion: we search our files as well as on-line databases and the Internet to determine how frequently words are used, their range of uses and even their variant spellings.”

The Random House editors continue to cull the words to determine the short list for inclusion in the dictionary. Some words don’t make it, even though the editors would like to include them. According to Nichols, one word in particular elicited an energetic discussion – “himbo” (it means a “male bimbo”).

“It’s still not strong enough in the general vocabulary to include, although we all really like the word. In a sense, we’re rooting for its use to become more widespread so we can include it!” Nichols explains.

What do you think? Can we start a movement to add “himbo” to the general lexicon and get it in an upcoming edition of the dictionary? Read through the dictionary to see if you think any other word significant to you is missing. You could be the one to introduce the Random House staff to the new word of the year.

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