Inventing New Words

WELCOME THE OFFICIAL new word to American English: selfie. A "selfie" is a digital photograph of a person, taken by the person, of the person, and for the person, using a hand held computer. Just hold your smartphone at arm's length, point it at yourself, click, and send. Its easy! And, quite popular. The practice has become so common in our amazing computer age that a name had to be invented for it, and leave it to our youngsters to invent it. There is evidence that the young people of America deserve credit for the new word. Where other than in America would the practice of taking pictures of yourself ever become popular? Case closed. "Selfie" reigns supreme as the number one new word of the year! Give America credit; we use our narcissism inventively. Soon, there will be an even newer word added to our vocabulary: tradie. A "tradie" would be when two strangers agree to take pictures of each other. That will be next, won't it? How can it not be? Is not public picture trading, the logical next step? The more the merrier! The word "selfie" is remindful of the newest word of the twentieth century "movie", to describe a picture in motion. "Automobile" perfectly describes a machine which moves by itself, don't you think? The English language has a million words, roughly, and each year several dozen more are added to it, by various means, criteria, and organizations. There are no hard and fast rules for the evolution of languages, for the the addition and removal of words. Every word added has a pretty good argument supporting its addition, based on widespread common, popular usage. Every word which falls out of fashion is discarded, and relegated to the scrapheap of antiquated words. American English in particular is highly evolutionary, just as American culture in general seems to change fast.