When it comes to “new words,” your mileage may vary.
Everybody on the Internet seems to have heard the news that “fanboy” was recently added to the Merriam-Webster’s dictonary. “Fanboy” is defined as a “boy who is an enthusiastic devotee, such as of comics or movies.” And how many years has that been around?
Then another entry on the vaunted list of “new words” is “mondegreen” — “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung.” Good grief – Jim Hollander used that as the title of his weekly APA-L zine in 1970 and it’s just now making it into the dictionary?
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The SF connection goes back further than that. As Merriam-Webster acknowledges, the term “mondegreen” was coined by columnist Sylvia Wright…aunt to SF and fantasy writer Tappan King, who is himself husband to Tor editor (and current Hugo nominee) Beth Meacham.
Hey, that’s not slow as dictionary additions go… The Wheels Of Dictionary Grind Slow, But They Grind Exceeding Fine!
And Tappan’s grandfather is Austen Tappan Wright, author of “Islandia”.