F-Bomb added to Merriam-Webster dictionary along with sexting, flexitarian and obesogenic

The entry "f-bomb," is one of the 15 new additions in the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. / AP

(AP) NEW YORK — It's about freakin' time.

The term "F-bomb" surfaced in newspapers more than 20 years ago but will land Tuesday for the first time in the mainstream Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, along with sexting, flexitarian, obesogenic, energy drink and life coach.

In all, the company picks about 100 additions for the 114-year-old dictionary's annual update, gathering evidence of usage over several years in everything from media to the labels of beer bottles and boxes of frozen food.

So who's responsible for lobbing F-bomb far and wide? Kory Stamper, an associate editor for Merriam-Webster, said she and her fellow word spies at the Massachusetts company traced it back to 1988, in a Newsday story that had the now-dead Mets catcher Gary Carter talking about how he had given them up, along with other profanities.

But the word didn't really take off until the late `90s, after Bobby Knight went heavy on the F-bombs during a locker room tirade.

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"We saw another huge spike after Dick Cheney dropped an F-bomb in the Senate in 2004," and again in 2010 when Vice President Joe Biden did the same thing in the same place, Stamper said.

"It's a word that is very visually evocative. It's not just the F-word. It's F-bomb. You know that it's going to cause a lot of consternation and possible damage," she said.

Many online dictionary and reference sites already list F-bomb and other entries Merriam-Webster is only now putting into print. A competitor, Oxford University Press, has F-bomb under consideration for a future update of its New Oxford American Dictionary but beat Merriam-Webster to print on a couple of other newcomers: mash-up, added to the Oxford book in 2005, and cloud computing, included in 2010.

No worries, Stamper said. The dictionary biz isn't a race.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate gets a cover-to-cover overhaul every decade or so in addition to yearly upgrades. The Springfield, Mass.-based company also picks a defining word of each year closer to Thanksgiving. Among the company's other additions this year, including online at Merriam-Webster.com, and various apps:

The Oprah-inspired "aha moment," the Stephen King-popularized earworm, as in that truly torturous tune you can't get out of your head, and man cave, brain cramp and bucket list.

King, in a 2009 column for Entertainment Weekly headlined "The Trouble With Earworms," wrote of waking up in the middle of the night for a glass of water when he found himself singing a snippet of a lyric.

"My friend the Longhair says that's what you call songs that burrow into your head and commence chewing your brains. The dreaded earworm can turn even a great song into something you'd run from, screaming at the top of your lungs. If only you could," he wrote.

Stamper said the word, a translation of the German ohrwurm, surfaced in English in the late `80s as a way to describe untranslatable words. As a tune that won't leave your head, "It just solidified itself in the national linguistic consciousness in America," she said.

Earworm isn't actually a new word for Merriam-Webster but the definition is to differentiate from the once-sole description of a specific blight on ears of corn.

The first reference found by Merriam-Webster for "aha moment" dates to 1939 in a book of psychology. Its use was sporadic until the `90s, when Oprah Winfrey began using it on her no-longer-on-the-air TV show.

"In fact, aha moment is so closely associated with Oprah that in 2009, she and Mutual of Omaha got involved in a legal imbroglio over Mutual of Omaha's use of the phrase, with Oprah claiming that aha moment was her catchphrase and she had the rights to it," Stamper said.

The case was settled out of court in 2009.

The word "tweet" led last year's new-word highlights from Merriam-Webster. This year's additions are more eclectic, Stamper said.

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[andrewjsacks]

Such stories are always marked by interestitude.

[rightontarget]

So the "F-bomb" made it into the dictionary. Wow (big news there, NOT!) Well, it really is a word. (verb actually although often used incorrectly). Kind of like the word "fornicate". Big deal. It is a real word just the same as that word that means "female unspayed dog". The super right who get shocked over a hangnail need to get over themselves.

[rightontarget]

Guess I misunderstood which word made it in. Just the term "F-bomb" made it in?? ..Really??? That's no big deal at all. "F-bomb" describes the F word. (the term is a noun) The actual word itself is a verb. Good grief people. Like my mother used to say, there is a time and a place and, if you are going to cuss, then at least be gramatically corredt. (and she was serious) I really don't see the big deal in having either word in the dictionary. Big whoop!

[foo8259]

"earworm" I noticed that commercial for a sugar substitute the other day is still on, the one that immediately starts with "twinkle twinkle ..." By the time you press MUTE you're already inoculated for the rest of the day! More horrid ad jungles emerge every Christmas with their words forced into an Xmas carol. I can't wait.

[phwtb100]

Just goes to show even Webster doesn't discriminate against ignorance.

Profanities are just the first of the many red flags marking the idiocy sweeping across the United States while, in fact, proving the poor education system this country offers its young people. It seems to be no one under 35 can complete a full sentence without using some form of vulgar and/or explicit language.

How sad.

EDUCATE yourself on the English language and you just might discover you actually have a brain under all that garbage. Who knows? Maybe, just maybe, you might even discover you have a brain that can understand your pants go around your waist and only circus freaks tattoo themselves from head to toe.

[venusvegasvada]

I wonder if one of the definitions is:

"General public reaction to the Romney-Ryan SS-Medicare/Medicaid plan".

[Transatlantique]

Why? When the word to which this term refers is not a problem except in the mind of the prudish idiot. The term "F-bomb" somehow assumes that there is some kind of exceptional power to the word that the "F" represents. One can say "Fornication Under the Consent of the King" and there is no problem. But when the capital letters are taken out of the main words and used as an anagram, that somehow becomes "rude" to the point that someone can no longer speak the anagram but now only the first letter of the anagram "F" followed by the word "bomb." How stupid will our culture get before they realise that words aren't bad, but that only people can be? Misperception and ignorance are why words, or anagrams that evolve into words, further evolve into idiot terms, and end up in dictionaries. Simply speak or type the word that I can't type here because of our prudish idiot media rules. This is like the "N word." We know what it means, we know how it sounds, so just speak it and get over it. Words aren't really that bad. Stop giving them more power than they deserve.

[Bojax39]

"F-Bomb added to Merriam-Webster dictionary"

But you can rest assured it will never see the light of day in the CBS commentary pages.

Just as well. Half the fun here is how to say what needs to be said with impact while figuring ways to get around CBS's censorship.

Especially when reporters can use words in articles which are denied to commentators.