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The Oxford English Dictionary chose “post-truth” as its 2016 Word of the Year. The OED defined it as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief." This is an extraordinary development. Seeking restlessly for the truth has been at the heart of Western culture for more than 2000 years. Just 30 years ago, the idea of post-truth would have seemed just as absurd as “post-goodness” or “post-food”.

The four Marines killed Wednesday while clearing unexploded ordnance at Camp Pendleton were bomb removal technicians. The four were killed around 11 a.m. during a routine sweep to make a range safer for future training exercises at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, said a Marine official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. There was no live firing on the range at the time.

You can't put a price tag on surviving a deadly attack overseas, but one Fort Hood soldier knows the cost of the helmet that saved his life all too well. "I had a couple shrapnels in my side plates and in my helmet," Army Sergeant Michael Williams said about the gear that protected him on June 13, 2011. Now, more than two years after the day he was wounded by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, he got a "bill" for his shrapnel-pierced helmet. "I automatically assumed that, you know, that's the gear that I got blown up in, that...

The parents of a U.S. Marine killed in Afghanistan are adopting the bomb-sniffing dog who the military says loyally rushed to their son's side when he was fatally shot. ... Brief excerpt per ap rules.

It was first published 126 years ago and is respected the world over. But the Oxford English Dictionary will never appear in print again, its owners have announced. Instead, the 80 lexicographers who have been working on the third edition for the past 21 years have been told the fruits of their labour will exist solely online.   The OED has been available on the internet for the past ten years and receives two million hits a month from subscribers who pay £205 a year, plus VAT, to access it. Oxford University Press says the dominance of the internet...

It blasted its way into our eardrums throughout the World Cup - and now the vuvuzela is set to make a big noise in the dictionary. The long South African horn was used incessantly through every match in the tournament. And the vuvuzela is one of more than 2,000 new words and phrases included in the Oxford Dictionary of English for the first time. Other newcomers include tweetup (a meeting arranged through Twitter), cheeseball (lacking taste or style) and a turducken (a roast dish consisting of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey). Paywall (which restricts website access to...

The Oxford English Dictionary added several new words to their lexicon today. The complete list can be accessed online here: http://www.oed.com/help/updates/latestadditions.html#oos Highlights include: + amateur night, n. and adj. + bailout, n.2 + bupkis, n. + buttload, n. + Clintonista, n. + commitment-phobe, n. + dwarf planet, n. + grilled cheese, n. + searchability, n. + turducken, n. + Many others Source: Oxford English Dictionary

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, March 26, 2009 – She takes a few steps forward and then glances over her shoulder. A few feet up the road she stops and lies down on the ground, a sign of possible danger. Army Sgt. Stephen Netzley, a K-9 handler with 3rd Squadron, 71st Calvary Regiment, and his German shepherd, Lady, search for explosive devices during a route clearance patrol in Afghanistan’s Logar province, March 9, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Matthew Thompson  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Lady is a German shepherd trained to sniff out explosives and their components. Her...

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2009 – Coalition and Iraqi forces arrested two suspected terrorists, seized weapons and destroyed thousands of pounds of explosives in operations in Iraq in the past five days, military officials reported. A Mosul special weapons and tactics team, aided by coalition forces, yesterday arrested two suspected terrorists listed on a Central Criminal Court of Iraq warrant in Ninevah province. When the team moved to arrest a third suspect, the suspect resisted with small-arms fire from inside a house. A SWAT member was shot in the leg, and an Iraqi woman was wounded. She was treated on site...

U.S. soldiers killed while disabling bomb in Afghanistan - CNN.comTwo US soldiers and three Afghans were killed while the soldiers were trying to disable a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, ...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ Mary Dague hears the catty whispers sometimes. "So ugly," the strangers say when they think she can't hear. The 24-year-old has bright green eyes, a quick smile, and on the days she gets her husband's help, perfectly applied mascara and blush. But all the gawkers really see are her arms, each amputated above the elbow.

Islamofascism added to Oxford dictionary http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2007/7/17/islamofascism_expert_sues_local_publisher_over_nuclear_terrorism_claims Raw Story, MA - Jul 3, 2007 In its latest update, the Oxford English Dictionary now includes "Islamofascism" and related words...

One Low Country Marine with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort has been recognized with one of the nation's highest honors for his role in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Master Sgt. Donald Parrish works as the explosive ordnance disposal officer in charge for Marine Wing Support Squadron 2-73 at the air station. Not too long ago, he was serving in Iraq, leading a group of Marines to destroy insurgent weapons and explosive devices as troops pushed toward Fallujah. "Our responsibility basically was to make sure main effort for pushing through and clearing out the city wasn't hindered or hampered by explosive devices,"...

NEWS RELEASE HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND 7115 South Boundary Boulevard MacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101 Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 May 15, 2005 Release Number: 05-05-19 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE IRAQI KIDS LEAD U.S. SOLDIERS TO WEAPONS CACHE BAGHDAD, Iraq – A group of Iraqi children led Task Force Baghdad Soldiers directly to a weapons cache in southeast Baghdad May 13. The Iraqi children showed the Soldiers where three rocket propelled grenades and 10 fuses were hidden. An explosives ordnance disposal team was called to the site and safely detonated the munitions. “The majority of Iraqis do...

The triumphant rise of English - By Janadas Devan THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING: THE STORY OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY By Simon Winchester Oxford University Press THE English language is constantly expanding. The 11th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, for instance, which appeared early this week, included 2,000 new words and phrases - among them, 'va-va-voom', 'blue-on-blue' and 'speed dating'. According to one report, the OED's lexicographers catalogued about 90,000 new words in the past century, or roughly 900 each year. But as impressive as are these numbers, they pale somewhat in comparison to the past. English, the...

No, I’m not in favor of bigotry itself. That attitude, wherever it is found, is a cancer on the American body politic. But I am in favor of the recapture of the word “bigotry” from those who hold it hostage, and its frequent and vigorous application wherever it is earned. Ask most people what bigotry means, and the dominant answer will be that it is “discrimination against blacks (and other people of color) by whites.” A few will give a broader and better answer, that it is “discrimination against people of different races or religions than yours.” That’s better, but...

"Bada bing" -- the catchphrase made famous by hit television show "The Sopranos (news - Y! TV)" -- has earned a place alongside 3,000 other new entries in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, published on Thursday. "Reality TV," "SARS (news - web sites)" and "Muggle," someone lacking magic powers from the "Harry Potter (news - web sites)" series of novels by author J.K. Rowling (news - web sites), have also been added to the tome, the largest one-volume dictionary of English, the book's publishers said. The Oxford dictionary describes "bada bing" (also "bada bing bada boom")...

Thomas Mann said, "Speech is civilization itself." A common knowledge of words and their meanings is necessary for a culture to survive and flourish. English, it is believed, already has more words than any other language. As our society evolves, so do words and their usages. Dictionaries track such changes. A few weeks ago a new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a perennial bestseller, was published. At roughly the same time, the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary added hundreds of new words to its online version. Some of the words appear fairly common. Brewski (a beer), chin music (an inside pitch...

It has an awe-inspiring story behind it and a major contributor whose insanity led him to commit murder and mutilate himself. The work, however, is not fiction. It's a reference book - The Oxford English Dictionary, commonly known as the OED. A revered resource for some and a conversation piece for others (did you know the slang word "diss" made its earliest known appearance in a rap song from 1980?), the Oxford English Dictionary stands as the most complete record of the English language from the ninth century to the present. Begun in 1879 by the Philological Society in London,...

LONDON - Khazi, minging, bling-bling? Not some crazy new dialect, but standard British vocabulary, according to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published Friday. The publishers said they have added almost 6,000 new words and phrases that reflect 21st century life, including the frowner's favorite, Botox, passion-enhancing drug Viagra and sambuca, the aniseed liqueur served with a flaming coffee bean. Among the 187,000 definitions in the latest edition, published by Oxford University Press, there is also bevvy — British slang for a beer; head-case, referring to a person who exhibits irrational behavior; and bling-bling, a reference to elaborate...