Posted 07/08/08 at 02:50:22 PM by Paul Lilly

"At one point during the webinar, 'W00ts!' were heard emanating from the conference room as Harry, a renowned Team Fortress 2 fanboy, demonstrated how to properly tea-bag an opponent."

Most English teachers would have a field day with the above sentence, but with the exception of 'tea-bag,' the rest of the terms are now officially recognized. Perhaps Merriam-Webster is undergoing a mid-life crisis, or maybe as geeks we've leveled up our ability to affect the English language. Either way, a bevy of new terms are being added to the latest version of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, and many of them could be pulled straight out of any computer forum. Among the new terms are:

• webinar
• netroots
• pretexting
• fanboy
• malware 

Not all the new words are technology terms, but many of them do reflect societal trends. "As soon as we see the word used without explanation or translation or gloss, we consider it a naturalized citizen of the English language," explained Peter Sokolowoski, an editor-at-large for Merriam Webster.

Find how how you can further influence Merriam-Webster after the jump.

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