If recent reports are to be believed, the word “stan” has just been added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), published by the Oxford University Press, one of the most prestigious in the world.
If you’re not familiar with the word, it means someone is a hardcore fan. Its etymology varies: some believe that it is a portmanteau of the words “stalker” and “fan,” while others believe it came from the Eminem song called “Stan,” featuring Dido. In the music video, a man named Stan is an obsessed fan of Eminem, and gradually becomes angrier when Eminem doesn’t reply to his fan mail. It is considered one of the rapper’s best and most popular songs.
A lot of media outlets have reported that the word “stan” has just been added to the OED, but there’s no word which page started it. What they all had in common was a screenshot of the Oxford Dictionaries page, which defined the word as “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.”
But the thing is, the word was added to the page on February 26, 2016, more than a year before the flurry of reports. A simple Google hack that lets you show when a webpage was published shows this:
Another thing, the Oxford Dictionaries is a completely different thing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This wouldn’t be a big deal if people are saying that the word has been added to the Oxford Dictionaries, but many are citing the Oxford English Dictionary.
According to the Oxford University Press, “The OED and the dictionaries in Oxford Dictionaries are themselves very different. The dictionary content in Oxford Dictionaries focuses on current English and includes modern meanings and uses of words. The OED, on the other hand, is a historical dictionary and it forms a record of all the core words and meanings in English over more than 1,000 years, from Old English to the present day, and including many obsolete and historical terms.”
In short, the word “stan” has not been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Yes, it has been recognized in the Oxford Dictionaries, but it is not a recent occurrence. It has been there since 2016.
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