Webster has added words such as “bling” and “ho-bag” to its pages, and some faculty don’t believe it will hurt the English language.

Or even affect it.

“It does not deserve any lengthy discussion because … it is not going to affect the language or its development in any way,” said Victor Raskin, professor of English and linguistics, in an e-mail.

Other professors said English is constantly evolving, and a dictionary is just a sample of what words are being utilized.

“I think language is always changing,” said Margie Berns, director of the Graduate Program in English as a Second Language. “A dictionary is a description of the current language.”

Berns said seemingly harmless words have also been historically controversial.

“People disapproved of the word bookkeeper because of its bringing two words together,” she said. “And now we can’t imagine not having the word.”

Shaun Hughes, professor of English, also cited past controversy in the dictionary business and word usage acceptability, such as when the New York Times refused to accept prescriptive word definitions in 1934, and prompted the American Heritage Foundation to create its own dictionary.

“They ended up with entries in which the editors voted on the acceptability of word usage,” Hughes said in an e-mail. “What was significant was that it was almost impossible to get 100 percent agreement on particular cases, and subsequent editions of the American Heritage Dictionary have become increasingly descriptive.”

Elaine Francis, assistant professor of English, said dictionary editors take painstaking care to reflect the current usage of English.

“The editors wouldn’t be likely to include words that are used as jargon or slang by a small subset of people,” Francis said in an e-mail.

Other comments from faculty include

n “The language users do not consult any dictionary before embarking on innovation, as they constantly do, and all dictionaries are a decade or two behind the actual usage.” - Raskin

n “Not all slang words make it into the dictionary, just the ones that editors determine have become sufficiently part of the current cultural scene that they can be considered established … but editors do have a responsibility to record what they determine to be the most significant changes and innovations in our vocabulary.” - Hughes

n “Dictionaries probably do have some impact on the language … but first and foremost the role of dictionaries is to provide accurate information about all of the words in a language that are found in common usage.” - Francis