It’s official: bogan has made it into the Oxford dictionary.

It’s language’s highest bar to clear, and its inclusion means that by any definition, bogan is truly a word. How do words get into the dictionary, anyway? And what do these words tell us about ourselves?

Linguist Daniel Midgley brushes up on the lingo on this week’s episode of Talk the Talk.


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76: Bogan

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Show notes

It’s in Oxford.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/bogan-breaks-into-oxford-dictionary/story-fn3dxity-1226400667977
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-19/bogan-makes-it-into-oxford-dictionary/4078778

Where does it come from? Possibly the river.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bogan#Etymology

More bogan history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogan

How do they decide what goes in the dictionary, anyway?
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-do-you-decide-whether-a-new-word-should-be-included-in-an-oxford-dictionary

Here’s how you can submit evidence for a word.
http://www.oed.com/public/contribute/contribute-to-the-oed

And the Oxford Dictionaries Online has added even more new ones.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/05/totes-amazing-new-words-added-to-odo/

Here are some aptonyms.
http://www.heraldnet.com/section/news010311