Photot: Danny Hashtings
One of the words added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2019 is “Stan” which came about following Eminem’s hit song with the same title.
The dictionary defines Stan, noun, as “an extremely or excessively enthusiastic and devoted fan” and as a verb “to exhibit fandom to an extreme or excessive degree: to be an extremely devoted and enthusiastic fan of someone or something”.
Eminem released Stan, featuring Dido, in 2000 and the song is about an extreme fan that excessively obsesses about the rapper.
Following the release of the song, the word Stan was then used as a definition for obsessive fans.
The dictionary said it added more than 640 words in 2019.
“The English language never sleeps, and neither does the dictionary. The work of revising a dictionary is constant, and it mirrors the culture’s need to make sense of the world with words,” a statement reads.
New additions include “stan”, “salutogenesis”, “buzzy”, “gig economy”, “qubit”, and “garbage time”.
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