Thisweek, it's a resource for people who want to know more about the Englishlanguage in all its contemporary messiness - a great place to learn about thewords you won't find in most regular dictionaries.
"UrbanDictionary is a slang dictionary with definitions written by people who come tovisit the site. So all of its content is written by normal people like you andme," says Aaron Peckham. He is the founder of a site he created as a university student.
Anyonecan submit a new word, or a new definition for a word already in thedictionary. More than three million definitions have been submitted in thedecade or so that Urban Dictionary has been on line. Peckham and his team ofeditors update the site daily, adding about 1,000 new entries every day.
Theresult is an English lexicon that is fun, engaging and up-to-date, if notexactly scholarly. It is, we should warn you, full of words you can't say onthe radio. But of course, those might just be the words you need to know about.
"Peoplehave written in to me to tell me that they use Urban Dictionary to figure outwhat their kids are talking about, what their students are talking about, tofigure out what people are talking about at the MTV music awards, what's goingon in lyrics and stuff. Even what politicians say sometimes can be decoded withUrban Dictionary.com."
Becauseit's written by ordinary, mostly young users, not stuffy old editors ofmainstream lexicons, UrbanDictionary.com is a window on not just the Englishlanguage but on contemporary culture.
"Ihope Urban Dictionary is a way to figure out what's going on in Americanculture," Peckham says.
"Somepeople have told me that after arriving in the United States that UrbanDictionary's been a really valuable resource to figure out what people arereally saying because there's so much meaning behind words besides what's inthe normal dictionary definition. And Urban Dictionary can help to decodethat."
...Especially since every definition includes an example of contemporary usage atUrbanDictionary.com, or get the link to this and more than fromour site, voanews.com.