Dipping Into the Mailbag: 'Yeet,' 'Typeface' vs. 'Font,' and 'Lo and Behold'

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• 00:07

  Coming up on Word Matters, some questions from you.

• 00:11

  I'm Emily Brewster and Word Matters is produced by Merriam-Webster in collaboration with New England Public Media.

• 00:17

  On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Amin Shea,

• 00:21

  Peter Sokolowski and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.

• 00:29

  New slang words pop up all the time, but we can't just yeet them all into the dictionary, can we?

• 00:35

  No, of course not.

• 00:36

  but yeet itself may be getting closer.

• 00:40

  I'll get us started on this one.

• 00:42

  We have a question from Vincent.

• 00:45

  The word yeet is very popular with my preteen children and has currency online,

• 00:50

  at least on Twitter, where I see it used multi-generationally.

• 00:54

  Merriam-Webster doesn't define it yet.

• 00:56

  I personally prefer toss it or fling it when my daughter might just say, just yeet it.

• 01:01

  And I appreciate the verbal force it contains.

• 01:03

  What conditions would need to be met for it to leave the pages of the Urban Dictionary and be defined in Merriam-Webster?

• 01:10

  Yeet.

• 01:11

  This is spelled Y-E-E-T.

• 01:14

  And this is the word that I've been paying attention to for quite a while.

• 01:18

  Are you all familiar with it, Peter and Amon?

• 01:20

  I have a 12-year-old son, so yes.

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