Faculty of Arts in the Media: ‘Add oil’ entry in Oxford English Dictionary is just latest Cantonese phrase to hit mainstream
17 October 2018 (Wednesday)
SCMP - Society
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“Add oil” has been made an official term in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It follows a long list of other Cantonese terms and phrases to have entered the mainstream “Hong Kong English” lexicon and later wriggled into the world’s most authoritative record for the English language.
Dr Jon Orman, honorary assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong’s school of English, said dictionaries have always been ideological and commercially driven projects.
“They are never just the innocent descriptive projects many lexicographers would like to believe,” he said.
“The ideology which is most in vogue currently is one of diversity and inclusion, hence the appearance of all manner of increasingly exotic vocabulary items in the OED unknown to the vast majority of English speakers.”
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