Ted Talks: What makes a word real?

Is the internet degrading the English language? Social networking sites allow you to 'defriend' someone - is 'defriend' even a real word? New words like 'hangry' (hungry and angry) are evolving every day, but just how real are these slang words? This is explored in this TedTalk given by Anne Curzan. She concludes that dictionaries are human and not timeless, yet we tend to treat them as though they have no author. There is no objective dictionary force out there: if a community is using a word and knows what it means then the word is 'real', because it is we who make it real. Click here for the Ted Talk!