In my last English class, we saw an interesting video about how new words get added to the Oxford Dictionary. Initially, something that people talk about became a word when a lot of people use it with the same meaning. How does the Oxford Dictionary know what can be specified as a word?

Since 1857, the dictionary has had a group of readers that spend all their work time reading and trying to find new words. They read all types of sources, for example: newspapers, social media, television, magazines, and music. Once they find a potential new word, they save it in a database and an editor tracks its use and decides whether it can get added to the dictionary based on three rules. The first of which is that the word has been in print five times, in five different sources over a period of five years.

This video starts a conversation about "How easy is it to create a new word?" and "How this process starts?". I try to think of a situation or combine different words, but it is really difficult. I believe that a lot of new words start with jokes that everyone repeats and unconsciously start to use in daily life.

Here in Brazil, we have good examples of potential new words: "zap" and "sextou". The first one, "zap", is an abbreviation for the app "Whatsapp", this starts with a viral joke with a nonsense song with a unique phrase "come to zap", this phrase means that the singer is inviting people to talk via Whatsapp with him.; people start to call "Whatsapp" by "zap" as a joke and now this is the most common way to call the app.

The other word "sextou" (the same feeling of "Thank God It’s Friday" but using the word "Friday" as a verb, something as "Fridaying"), the use of this word also starts with a viral joke where people shared photos in relaxing situations or drinking. In the beginning, they shared people doing these things but in bizarre places, for example, drinking beer inside a water tank as a pool. But when get viral people to start to use the word with all photos related to fun. So, now everyone uses this word, especially when the workday finishes, they say "sextou" meaning that now the fun will begin.

Maybe someday we will see these words in a dictionary. If it followed the first rule of the Oxford Dictionary, I am pretty sure that the word "sextou" has been printed much more than 5 times and more than 5 different sources, but we will have to wait a few years.