I am finally finishing up this spelling book that I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. Pasted below is an example of the things I must write to appeal to the youth of today. I tell you this not to frighten, but to enlighten.

In 2007 alone, over 100 new words and phrases were added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate dictionary, including smackdown (the act of bringing down an opponent), crunk (a rap style known for hard driving rhythms / slang for “partying like crazy”) and ginormous (ridiculously huge). In this chapter, we’ll be taking a look at words that have come into English from a ginormous variety of sources, including foreign words, old words that are being used in new ways, and brand new words that are just joining the language. Before we get crunk with spelling, let’s see if you can’t put the smackdown on this pretest!