http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/11/17/quot-meh-quot-is-the-new-quot-whatever-quot-will-quot-teh-quot-be-the-new-quot-the-quot.aspx
The word "meh" has officially entered the dictionary. As this Associated Press story points out, the "expression of indifference or boredom" was chosen amongst various terms submitted by lexicographers to be included in the Collins English Dictionary next year.
Its origins are somewhat unclear, but one of its first known uses was in a 2001 episode of The Simpsons in which Homer suggests a day trip to Bart and Lisa, whereupon they simply shrug and say "Meh" in unison before going back to watching TV.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper might be disappointed to learn that one of the examples of the word in a sentence provided by the dictionary is: "The Canadian election was so meh."
Part of the reason the word "meh" gained so much traction has to do with its proliferation in the blogosphere and online chat rooms. But there are plenty of other words-that-aren't-really-words being used on the internet these days — does this mean w00t is next on the list?
What about acronyms like "btw" or "brb"? Or, there's always the purposely misspelled words, such as "teh," a variation of "the," which is seen frequently on sites like Cute Overload and has the impressive ability to become a gerund, as in: "This is teh suck".
And of course, thanks to Perez Hilton, we also have the expression, "Loves it" instead of "Love it."
Finally, there's the intentionally superfluous use of the letter Y to convey a sing-songy form of excitement, as in: "Heyyy! Can't wait to partyyyy!"
Perhaps the folks over at Collins, Oxford and Merriam-Webster should bookmark Wikipedia's internet slang page for future reference — after all, the open-source online encyclopedia is teh best resource for predicting linguistic trends. We loves it.
