Vuvuzela earns a place in English dictionary

I / London August 19, 2010, 14:47 IST

Vuvuzelas, the plastic horns that provided the soundtrack for the World Cup in South Africa, have blared their way into a dictionary containing the latest in the English language, that was published today.

The deafening trumpets are one new entry in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, which is based on how language is really used.

Their monotone drone could be heard throughout matches during the tournament, and came in for criticism from both players and spectators.

The new accolade for the horns, whose buzzing has been compared to a hornets' nest, came after "vuvuzela" was voted the word of the World Cup in a survey of global linguists last month.

It was chosen by 75 per cent of more than 320 linguists from over 60 countries, who were asked to choose the word with the biggest impact on the tournament.

Vuvuzela was just one of more than 2,000 new entries in the third edition of the dictionary, which was first published in 1998.

The battle to deal with climate change provided carbon capture and storage, the process of trapping and storing carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels.

The economic crisis also introduced new terms. These included toxic debt, debt which has a high risk of default, and quantitative easing, which is the introduction of new money into the national supply by a central bank.