THAT scion of lexicography, The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, has for the first time acknowledged the contribution Hong Kong society has made to the English language. Alongside such new terms as grunge, dweeb, scuzz and gonzo, the latest edition includes Hang Seng, hong, pak pai and wallah-wallah. Publishers Oxford University Press say the $660 dictionary, due in Hong Kong bookshops in October, represents the ultimate authority on contemporary and historical English, apart, that is, from the larger and more thorough Oxford English Dictionary. The shorter version incorporates a wealth of newly researched material gleaned from contemporary English literature worldwide. It is the first major revision of the dictionary since 1933. Both current and historical English are covered in two volumes made up of 220,000 entries, 500,000 definitions and 83,000 quotations. For those unwilling to wait for its release in Hong Kong and unfamiliar with the language, the Hang Seng is the local financial index; a hong is a trading establishment; a pak pai is a car illegally operating as a taxi; and a wallah-wallah is a small boat used as a ferry for casual traffic. Grunge is ''a style of rock music characterised by a raucous guitar sound and a lazy delivery''. A dweeb is a ''person who is boringly conventional, puny or studious''. A scuzz is an ''unpleasant person''. Gonzo, coined by American journalist Hunter S. Thompson, is a ''crazy person''. Hong Kong's youth may be disappointed to find that there is no mention of ''zeng'', the expression of appreciation, often of women, used by streetwise young men. Also absent is the equally popular language trend known as ''mo lei tau'', made famous by the Cantonese film star Stephen Chiau Sing-chi. This strictly local phenomenon involves speaking in amusing, logically incoherent sentences. Maybe it doesn't translate?
