LONDON, Oct 27: “Funemployment”, “PIIGS” and “broken society” have all made their way into the Collins English Dictionary, reflecting the dominance of the economic downturn in last year’s consciousness.

The latest technological trends have also been captured among the dozens of new inclusions, which were revealed on Wednesday with “tweetheart”, “tweet tooth”, “tweet-out”, “iPad” and “intexticated” all entering the lexicon.

“Funemployment” describes the enjoyment one had while on an unforeseen break from work and “PIIGS” is an acronym for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, the countries most at risk from the European sovereign debt crisis. “Broken society” and “social recession” describe the perceived erosion of moral values while “ghost estate” is an unfinished housing development abandoned due to the downturn.

These words are now in the dictionary. Social networking site Twitter is responsible for the addition of “tweetheart”, a person who uses the site and is much admired by other users.

“Tweet tooth” is the strong urge to post a Twitter update while “tweet-out” is a greeting sent to a friend via the online service.

The success of Apple’s new “iPad” laptop computer is acknowledged while the addition of “itexticated”, which means to be distracted while reading or writing a text message, exposes some of technology’s drawbacks.

Language-lovers in Glasgow whittled down the final list of new words after feeding written and spoken material from newspapers, websites, magazines, television and radio into a database over the past year.

The obsession with celebrity culture is highlighted by the inclusion of “fauxmance”, which is a non-existent relationship between stars concocted to attract media attention.

Popular political terms are also included. “Birther” is used to describe those who believe that US President Barack Obama was not born in America, making the new edition.

The addition of “Chindonesia”, a portmanteau word which blends China, India and Indonesia, reflects the shifting focus of world trade.

There is the usual inclusion of curious buzz-phrases with “grow the beard”, an informal term meaning to show a marked improvement in quality.—AFP