In the land of lexicons, what process must a word undergo before it can be granted space in a dictionary? You hear people joke about Beyoncé, and “bootylicious,” and words like that entering the dictionary, but what’s going on behind the scenes?

I will point out that we did not enter “bootylicious” in the American Heritage® Dictionary. However, there are a couple things going on and it depends on the type of word. There are some ideas or concepts that—well, take the elements in the periodic table, for example. All it takes is for the committee of the board that decides what the names of the elements are to say, “We’ve decided that element 111 is roentgenium,” and there you go. The people who are in charge of it said that this is what it is, and that’s all there is to say about it. It is what it is. Likewise, when they decided Pluto was not a planet anymore but a dwarf planet: You’ve got the body that decides this kind of thing saying, “Okay, we’ve created this category called dwarf planets.” It doesn’t matter how wide-ranging it is, it’s the fact that the people in charge of the IAU, the International Astronomical Union, said it was the case. Well, there you go.

Other words—by far, most words—are handled differently. Take slang, for instance. The American Heritage® Dictionary isn’t a slang dictionary. So, what happens when a slang term, for example, is considered to be entered into the dictionary? We would want to see how wide-ranging it is. Is it limited to New York or L.A. or Washington, or is it widespread? Is it used within only one sphere? Is it just used in the music world? Is it just used in the financial world or whatever? Or has it leaped across boundaries, is it being used more generally by people outside the area where the slang term first developed? So with slang, we want to see how widespread it is, whether it’s being used in a variety of sources.

There are many slang dictionaries and slang web sites are out there; they’re great and that’s what their focus is. I’m not putting down slang. I’m not a slang lexicographer; it’s not something that I am personally skilled at. For words that aren’t slang but describe, say, new innovations in computer technology—blog is a good example. You’ve seen how widespread it is, who is using it, and where. You want to look at a variety of sources and at some point, you just say, “Okay, it’s time for this word to go in,” because it’s either widespread enough or well-known enough or used enough.