All my bindaas desis, both words just made the dictionary of record for the Queen’s English. U-S-S-A-A! This is the giant dictionary every would-bee spelling prince and princess lugged around as their sole form of exercise. It was the only one which had all the words in it, and at $50, nine inches thick and 30 lbs, it was a sizeable investment.

On Wednesday, the Oxford Dictionary of English… revealed its new cache of linguistic treasures, including ‘bindaas’, ‘tamasha’, ‘ mehndi’, ‘desi’ and ‘lehnga’. Lollywood… finds honorable mention. So does ‘kitty party’, the chaat-and-chatter mainstay of bored Indian housewives for decades.

It even includes feather-to-dot crossover:

The dictionary’s co-editor Catherine Soanes told TOI she was particularly pleased to have been able to include the Indianism ‘tom-tom‘, defined by the ODE as “verb (chiefly Indian) proclaim or boast about.” [Link]

The Statesman points out words still missing (hello, Mumbaikars? Bindaas sans jhakaas?)

“What’s your good name?”… “Let’s go have some chai-vai” (tea, obviously, with snacks thrown in) or, “There’s a lot of this fighting-witing happening here every day…” A proud mother announcing to all and sundry about her ladli beti getting “cent per cent” (meaning 100 per cent) marks in math or an executive having to “prepone” his meeting… “business-baazi” or “cheating-giri…” “freak out…” In Kolkata, “enthu” replacing enthusiasm is old hat as also “sentu” for sentimental… “Funda” for fundamental, “intro” or “appo” for appointment are freely used… “Tux” has no relation with the tuxedo — who wears it in our country, anyway? — but with a baldie which must have originated with the Hindi word “taklu”… “timepass” for whiling away the hours… “hawala” (illegal financial dealings), “badla” (revenge) or “eve-teasing”… [Link]

And those already added:

India-origin words have dotted the English language for a long time. Words like bungalow, cashmere (from Kashmîr), cheetah, coolie, cot, cummerbund, cushy (from the Hindi khush), dinghy, dungaree, juggernaut (from Lord Jagannath’s huge rath-yatra, perhaps?) jungle, khaki (dusty), loot, punch (the drink made from paanch or five ingredients), pajamas, shawl, verandah, etc. In the latest Oxford English Dictionary, words like Angrez (Englishman) and Badmash have already figured. Earlier, it had added adda, bundh, dal puri, bandobast, chutney, bandana, chamcha (aren’t we familiar with them!) neta and dhaba. [Link]

The Luddites at the Telegraph aren’t impressed by the elegance and humor of high-tech coinage. And if you harbored any illusions about the OED being cutting-edge, they’re only now getting around to adding ‘masala’ and ‘multitask.’ At this rate they’ll add MP3 oh, around 2036.

The internet has provided a wealth of ugly new words, such as podcast (digital recording of radio or other programme made available for downloading) and phishing (the fraudulent practice of sending e-mails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to steal passwords and credit card numbers)… There are plenty of other monstrosities: clueful (knowledgeable), greige (a colour between grey and beige) and the truly dreadful multi-task. [Link]

The Telegraph’s resident curmudgeon then takes a shot at the U.S. With a last name like ‘Tweedie,’ I wouldn’t be talking

Some of the worst offenders come from the home of dumbed-down English, the United States. They include spendy (expensive), twofer (two items sold for the price of one), cockapoo (a crossbreed derived from cocker spaniel and miniature poodle) and picturize (an alleged verb describing the adaptation of a story for film). [Link]

Related posts here and here.