Exciting news today – the launch of the latest Chambers Dictionary and all the new words that have made it into the listing this year.

Green is top of the polls with ‘eco-village’, ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘electrosmog’ making it.  Now, with the first two I would say “what took you so long” to Mr Chambers but the last one is a newey to me – obviously Beijing related. (Actually, it is apparently the “electromagnetic fields emitted by computers and mobile phones” – you know, the ones that definitely do not scramble brains.)

‘Social networking’ also makes it in there, something that I thought had been going on in the City for years. Apparently they wait to make sure that a word or phrase has longevity before giving it the green light. Which makes me wonder about the inclusion of ‘blu-ray’ so early on in its gestation.