News reaches us today that the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is to include a bunch of new fangled words that have crept into the English language over the last year.

Common usage is all it takes for the chaps in Oxford with the thick glasses to include spurious or contrived words in the latest edition of the OED making it the best bedtime reading since the instructions for your central heating system.

Girl Power!?

This year's new words and phrases include 'Girl Power' (an oxymoron if ever I heard one), Decaff and by sneakily dropping the silent space in its name, 'Haircare' has become a top word in its own right. Other new entries more genuinely reflecting the times we live in include 'ecofeminism' and 'ecotourism'. More relavent were the inclusions of "hot-link," referring to internet hyperlinks although apparently it can also be a "spicy sausage" - I know I'd prefer a screen full of sausages.

I perused this news with amusement this morning, spilling a few Cocopops over the newspaper as I did so. Brushing the chocolately mess onto the floor, it struck me that the bookworms at the OED need to get up to speed on some motoring lingo. Picking up trendy new words by listening to radical feminists on Radio 4 or scouring the Telegraph for innovative verbage seems a tad too easy for me. Why aren't the Oxford tweeds reading the same things we are and picking up on the proper lingo like?

There are some obvious omissions from the weighty tome. Where for example are the following common terms:

numpty (nump'ti) noun, [From Old Saxon, numptěn, a horseless cart]. A middle aged driver of a non-descript (yet surprisiginly frugal) Japanese hatchback that drives at a constant 39mph in all conditions and situations. Pl.: numpties. Often quoted by readers of PistonHeads e.g.: "If that numpty doesn't get out of the way, I shall large it up the inside" See also: Soap, Large

soap (sope) noun, [Acr: Slow Old Aged Pensioner]. Typically driving a grey Morris Minor a soap never travels above 10mph but boasts that they've never had an accident in 100 years of driving. 

suv (ess'yu'vee) noun, [Acr: Slow Ugly Vehicle]. Oversized car driven by distracted mothers on school runs. See also: flik

flik (Darr'n) noun, [Orig: unknown]. Common term of abuse for fat children who don't walk to school. Believed to be derived from the acronym Fat Lazy Idle Kid. Usage: "I was held up by an SUV with one flik in the back scoffing Monster Munch".

I suspect - and I know I'm one to stereotype (that's typing with two hands according to the OED) - that many of the researchers must fit into the numpty sector themselves and they're permanently ignoring motoring culture to spite us. I suspect they all drive trugs themselves...

trugs (tr-ugs) noun, [From the Scottish, tartan rugs], beige cars made by British Leyland. Can be applied to Allegros and Marinas circa 1978 supplied with colourful picnic rugs on the rear shelf. Sometimes inappropriately applied to brown Austin Ambassadors and Princesses.

To be fair, that would explain their lack of knowledge of the following:

large (L-arrrrrge) noun, [Latin: Ben Hur], giving it large refers to unnecessary or inappropriate acceleration resulting in partial loss of control of the car. Only appropriate to rear/4 wheel drive cars. Also verb: Larging . Larging it in a front-wheel-drive car is commonly known as 'driving like a nonce'

caning (Kay'ning) verb [Latin: canna, Greek: kanna, Essex: spank], Using the top end of the rev range. Usage: 'I was caning the nuts off it'. See also threwaconrod.

Trackday (trak'day) verb [German: 'ring, French: Magny-Cours], a day spent larging it in order to increase your repertoire of stories that noone else is interested in. See also: lostit

lostit (lost'it) verb [Old Englishe: crash], common slang for losing control of your car. Retains credibility when recounting a motoring tale. Usage: "1st corner, second gear, I lostit" is preferable to "Sh*t, I crashed"

locost (lo'cost) noun [Humourous], Euphomism for a car that costs several thousand pounds to build.

diff lock (diff'lok) noun [Engineering], Key missing from my keyboard.

lunched (lunch'd) verb [French: onion soup], p. tense to have 'lunched' is to have gorged a large portion of fish and chips or to have damaged your transmission system spectacularly by changing into 1st gear instead of fifth.

off (of'f) adjective [Posh: Orrrf], Mysterious state of tyres reported by drivers prior to 'losing it'. Usage: "My tyres went off and I lostit". Also noun: off, losing control, leaving the circuit or the road way. Usage: "I had an off." is preferable to losing it or crashing as it implies no responsibility on the driver's part.

rev-limiter (rev-lim'ter) noun (Latin: reddus-linus) a person or device that prevents a car going too fast. See also wife, handbrake and ballast.

ballast (fat'tee) noun (Olde English: Bunter). Polite reference to obese passenger. See also porkpieonwheels and dribblingfatblokeinmondeo.

Curiously the whole lad culture, Max Power scene seems to have passed Oxford by too. Nowhere for example can I find a reference to 

boltonboy (bolt'on'boi) noun, [From French, fils de plastique merde]. Not to be confused with a resident of a Northern English town, a boltonboy is the owner of a worthless hatchback that has adorned it with numerous aftermarket bits of tat in a vain attempt to hide the humble origins of the car.

beanies (bee'neez) noun, [Heinz, 57 varieties]. The collective term for boltonboys. Derived from the use of industrial sized baked bean cans bolted onto exhaust systems the size of pipe cleaners. Usage: "I couldn't get a burger because the car park was full of beanies"

naughtybits (nought'e'bits) noun (orig: RGA). Cheeky term for 'body styling' or 'tack-on tat'.

tossertable (toss'er'tay'bull) noun, similar to the 'picnic' tables seen adorning some rear wheel drive supercars, the tossertable is the oversized spoiler bolted on to the back of a front-wheel-drive hatchback that lifts the front wheels off the ground and prevents opening the boot. Usually in primer.

huggies (nap'ee) noun, collective term for the shoulder pads added to seat belts in old Novas. Also known as seat belt warmers.

hunchies (Kev'inn) collective noun referring to scrawy shirtless blokes who don't wear seatbelts and lean over their steering wheel to try and make the car go faster.

Muppet Owner of a series 2 Escort RS Turbo who insists on blue lights on his washer jets and 20 inch rims scraping the rusting arches.

Strangely they've also missed out several high profile items from TV including:

numskullbint (t'art) noun. An attractive female presenter of motoring programmes who can barely string two words together and knows nothing about cars. See Men and Motors

drivelwunhundrard (driv'il'wun'undr'd) noun (orig: Mike Brewer). The assessment of a car based on fatuous categories and a scoring system based on flawed arithmetic and an obsession with jelly and cobblestones.

We'll be pressing hard for all these words to be included in next year's dictionary. We've also heard suggestions that the Government is already lobbying for some new words to be included in the 2003 edition. These are rumoured to include

speedkills (speed'kils) verb, [Schoolboy French, La voiture n'est pas ralentir]. Meaningless one dimensional mantra preached by numpties.

publictransport (bus) noun, [Old Saxon]. Dirty, slow means of travelling between fixed locations nowhere near your home.