Vietnamese Pho is included in the famous American dictionary.

The famous American dictionary Merriam-Webster recently announced the update of 150 new words to its vocabulary system, including the addition of many popular technology terms, reflecting the great influence of the digital age on daily life.

The famous American dictionary Merriam-Webster. (Source: parade.condenast.com)

Interestingly, in this update, Merriam-Webster added the word "Pho", a famous traditional Vietnamese dish, with the definition "a soup dish made from beef or chicken broth and rice noodles."

According to Merriam-Webster's definition, a "Selfie," or "selfie," is "a photograph of one's self that one has taken using a digital camera, typically for posting on a social networking site."

As a social media buzzword, in 2013, "selfie" was added to the Oxford online dictionary and was chosen as "word of the year" by the English dictionary.

Besides "selfie", another popular tech term that Merriam-Webster has updated is "hashtag" with the definition "a word or a series of consecutive characters placed after the # sign".

"Hashtag" appears a lot on social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Google+, ... Some other technology-oriented updates include "tweep" - a person who uses Twitter's online messaging service to send and receive information, "crowfuding" - the activity of raising funds from a group of people, especially from online communities, "catfish" - a person who creates a fake profile on social networks for the purpose of fraud.

Peter Sokolowski, an editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster, said the addition of many technology terms in this update reflects the rapid development of digital technology as well as its profound impact on modern human life.

In addition, the Merriam-Webster dictionary also adds to its vocabulary many new popular words that are not related to the digital technology field.

These include "steampunk," a term used to describe 19th-century science fiction with historical or technological steampunk themes, and "fracking," a hydraulic fracturing technique that uses high-pressure water mixed with chemicals to break up rock and soil, releasing oil and gas buried deep within the earth.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a product of the Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Corporation, which specializes in publishing reference and research books.

This dictionary was first introduced in 1828 under the original name "An American Dictionary of the English Language" compiled by Noah Webster.

Today, the Merriam-Webster dictionary is one of the most popular dictionaries in the United States. Merriam-Webster said 150 new words will be added to the print editions of the dictionary starting in 2014 as well as in the electronic version./.

According to VNA