Do ‘Yoopers’ take selfies? Ask Merriam-Webster dictionary

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Da “Yoopers” up dere in da U.P., Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, have hit it big with inclusion of their nickname in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and the company’s free online database.

The moniker for native or longtime residents of the Lake Superior region known for a distinctive manner of speaking and its Scandinavian roots was among about 150 new words announced Monday by the Springfield, Mass., company.

The update of the Collegiate’s 11th edition has pleased Yooper Steve Parks, the prosecutor in Delta County, Mich., who pushed for more than a decade to have the word recognized by Merriam-Webster.

Many of the other new words and terms stem from digital life and social media — spoiler alert, hashtag, selfie and tweep — while others are food-driven, including pho and turducken, a boneless chicken stuffed into a boneless duck stuffed into a boneless turkey.

Climate change and the environment did not go unnoticed, with the addition of cap-and-trade, a system that limits the amount of carbon emissions companies can produce but allows them to buy extra emissions from others.

Fracking also made it into the update, which has already shipped to retailers. So did e-waste and freegan, one who scavenges for free food in store and restaurant trash bins as a way to reduce consumption of resources.

Merriam-Webster relies on a network of observers who track down word usage in everything from newspapers to soup-can labels. Three or four senior editors make the final cut.

Other new words in the popular dictionary and at Merriam-webster.com:

Catfish (not the fish but the person who takes on a false online identity, a la the phantom girlfriend of football pro Manti Te’o); poutine, a French-Canadian snack of french fries covered with brown gravy and cheese curds; steampunk, a literary genre with dress-up followers that mashes up 19th-century societies with steam-powered technology; unfriend, which joins defriend; and hot spot, a place where Wi-Fi is available.