It must suck to be old right now. Even during generations with the most modest of cultural change — say, the 1950s — the elderly tend to be wary of the younger, at the very least because they can run fast and punch much harder and pay little attention to signs that say things like “Stay off the Grass.” Tough-talking youths and robots: They make the aged uneasy. There’s a word for it; ephebiphobia — the irrational fear of young people.

Compared to what little the aged had to deal with in the 50s, it must be intensely terrifying to be old today. The 21st century has panned out, so far, to most decidedly be a young person’s world. Case in point: The AP rolled out its annual fluff piece about new words that have made it through the editorial gauntlet and into the pages of Merriam-Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. Older people following traditional media had a chance to learn that locavore and frenemy await them when they receive the newest edition of M-W this upcoming holiday season. So now they’re in the know.

The thing is, other word definition outlets have quietly developed alongside and under the radar of the lumbering old giants that formerly maintained exclusive sway over what are acceptably considered words within the English language. What deregulated the territory held Merriam-Webster and other acknowledged keepers of the language is, of course, the protracted, blood-spattered death of the printed page. It’s simply too slow to keep up.

Take locavore. It’s making its first appearance in Merriam-Webster’s 2009 New Collegiate Dictionary. Online, it’s a different story. Three perfectly acceptable definitions for the word appears on Urban Dictionary; the earliest entry was posted in September 2006, the latest in January 2008. Protracted death.

So terrifying indeed it must be to know that soon one will lose the comfort afforded by slowly carressing a huge, lumbering volume that assures its owner all is well; all words will be defined in due course. All the words that the editorial board decides are words.

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