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Cutting the Cord: Weighing whether it is words or reality

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AP Cutting Cable

A cable box is seen on top of a television in Philadelphia in 2007.(Photo: Matt Rourke, AP)

Want more proof that cord cutting is officially a thing? It's caught the attention of the folks who publish the Oxford English Dictionary.

The term "cord cutter" isn't yet part of the Oxford English Dictionary, which is often considered the arbiter of the language. But it has been added to OxfordDictionaries.com[1], the first step toward OED inclusion.

Along with "cord cutter," the online dictionary also added [2]"binge-watch" and "hate-watch," which means watching a program you don't like, just so you can rant about it. A few other words added: "amazeballs" and "side-boob."

Updated quarterly, OxfordDictionaries.com is a more contemporary counterpart to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is due for its own quarterly update in September. Words migrate to the OED, but not quite that quickly, says Katherine Martin, who is the head of the U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press.

"There's a lot of evidence for 'cord cutter' right now so if it stays in (the vernacular) much longer it will be a very good candidate," she says.

The last print version of the OED came out in 1989, so OED.com is the up-to-date document. There are some sample entries[3] you can look at, but a subscription runs $29.95 monthly or $295 annually.

When the OED researchers looked into the background of "cord cutter," they found it has also been used to describe those who were dropping landline phone service for cellphones, Martin says.

"It's a fun word because you are comparing the cable or telephone companies to your umbilical cord," she says. "It's a fun piece of new English usage. And I think the fact we are adding 'binge-watch' and 'hate-watch' and 'cord cutter' all at the same time speaks to the fact that the way that we consume video content is changing a lot right now. So when things in society change, the English language tends to evolve a lot of new ways to talk about them. If I were looking at a linguistic trend, it would be that our entertainment consumption habits are really being revolutionized right now, and we are needing new words to describe the phenomenon."

cut_illustration

Only about 5% of U.S. homes with broadband Net service have cut the pay TV cord, says Parks Associates research analyst Glenn Hower.(Photo: Bob Laird, USA TODAY)

That all makes sense, but could the concept of cord cutting be overblown?

Only about 5% of U.S. homes with broadband Net service have cut the pay TV cord, says Parks Associates research analyst Glenn Hower. "We are not projecting really any increase in that," he says.

That's confirmed by a recent eMarketer[4] analysis of recent cord-cutting research that deemed it "more myth than reality," with perhaps 1 million U.S. cord cutters expected in 2014. Rather, consumers are more likely to switch from cable to telco and satellite services and chip away at their overall pay TV bill, the research firm's report projects.

"A big part of that is just the fact that consumers in the U.S. especially really like their video content and in a lot of instances that is just not really available without a pay TV subscription," Hower said. "You can get certain things from Hulu and Netflix but it is a very fragmented experience and you have to subscribe to multiple services to get all the content you want and even then you won't have access to (everything)."

How online video services evolve — and traditional pay TV providers respond — will dictate whether "cord cutter" has a future on OED.com or not.

"Cutting the Cord" is a new regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it./" style="color: inherit; text-decoration: none;" name="readabilityLink-5" id="readabilityLink-5" target="_blank">'+addy_text49310+'<\/a>'; //--> [5]. And follow him on Twitter: @MikeSnider[6].

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References

  1. ^ http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/ (www.oxforddictionaries.com)
  2. ^ http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/08/oxford-dictionaries-update-august-2014/ (blog.oxforddictionaries.com)
  3. ^ http://public.oed.com/how-to-use-the-oed/what-is-the-oed-online/ (public.oed.com)
  4. ^ http://www.emarketer.com/Article/TV-Everywhere-High-Growth-Low-Usage/1011142 (www.emarketer.com)
  5. ^ This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it./" name="readabilityFootnoteLink-5" id="readabilityFootnoteLink-5" target="_blank">'+addy_text28246+'<\/a>'; //--> (rssfeeds.usatoday.com)
  6. ^ http://twitter.com/MikeSnider (twitter.com)
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