If the lexicon of the fashionable day Internet has left you scratching your head, don’t fret, Internet tradition evolves at a breakneck velocity, with apps like TikTok and platforms like Twitter serving as petri dishes for the following handful of buzzwords. Merriam-Webster is making an attempt its finest to acknowledge this, and is formally including some Internet slang to the dictionary.

Sometimes the meme tradition of the Internet can really feel like a totally totally different language, and Merriam-Webster is recognizing this dialect. The firm has announced a complete bunch of recent phrases being added to the titular dictionary—with a particular group of slang phrases generally thrown round on the interwebs. Honestly, Merriam-Webster is the publishing equal of “How do you do, fellow kids?” and this record simply proves my level. I imply, significantly, check out this smattering of newly inaugurated phrases:

• yeet, as an interjection — “used to express surprise, approval, or excited enthusiasm”
• yeet, as a verb — “to throw especially with force and without regard for the thing being thrown”
• janky – of very poor quality

• sus — “suspicious, suspect”
• lewk — “a fashion look that is distinctive to the wearer and that is noticeable and memorable to others”
• pwn — “to dominate and defeat (someone or something)”
• adorkable — “socially awkward or quirky in a way that is endearing”

Do you see what I imply fellow zillenials? It’s pitiful, really.

More particularly, I haven’t heard the phrase “lewk” utilized in (in all probability) months, the phrase “adorkable” hasn’t been used since The Big Bang Theory was on the air, and “pwn” is likely one of the commonest remnants of early 2010’s gaming tradition. Merriam-Webster acknowledges that they’re behind the curve, and that’s me placing it kindly, by stating of their launch that “the internet accelerates the adoption of informal language.” So evidently Merriam-Webster is making an attempt to play catch-up to the runaway practice that’s the evolution of Internet slang.

It’s vital for me to level out that whereas these slang phrases have been popularized by way of social media and online game tradition, a majority of that snappy Internet slang that Gen Z likes to yeet round didn’t actually originate on the Internet—it has as an alternative been co-opted from minority communities, specifically from Black people.

Take “sus” for instance, which was just lately popularized by the web homicide thriller recreation Among Us. While the origins are somewhat hazy, Inverse discusses how the phrase emerged from the Black group originally of the social media period. Words and phrases like “bet,” “period,” and “yas” have roots in African American Vernacular English.

All this to say the Internet strikes actually quick, and it’s essential to do not forget that the slang we use in our day-to-day emerges from a persecuted dialect, and that these origins will not be appropriately mirrored within the establishment of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, nonetheless cringy that dictionary could also be.