It appears that pop singer Miley Cyrus has invented a new dance craze called “twerking,” especially with part of the lyrics of her song saying, “start twerking like Miley.” Unfortunately, it was not the former “Hanna Montana” star who started this fad.
Apparently, the word “twerk” has already been used by conservative Victorian people before. And interestingly, this word has appeared about 170 years ago. This June, the word “twerk” was included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This act alone has received a lot of protests from academics claiming there is no viable reason for adding the word to the prestigious dictionary.
However, Katherine Connor Martin, Head of US Dictionaries, disapprove of the protest. She said that the institution does not include neologisms until they have had some time to establish themselves. But there are already public connotations in the 21st century that has already been added to the OED because they were widely used like jeggings (2009), photobomb (2008), crowdfund (2008), totes (2005) and sext (2001).
As for the word “twerk,” Martin noted that the word has already appeared in the dictionary more than a century ago. It was used as a noun to describe a type of dancing which emphasizes the performer’s posterior. The word originated in the early 1990s in the New Orleans’ bounce, but it already has a long lineage that came about 170 years ago.
“Twerk” was used in English as a noun in 1820, originally spelled “twirk,” as the twisting or jerking movement or a twitch. It then transitioned into a verb decades later and the word “twerk” was born around 1901. The precise origin of the new spelling is still unknown, but it could be the mix between twist and jerk.
Moving on from a failed relationship
After Miley broke up with former fiancé Liam Hemsworth, she came back to the entertainment industry with an entirely different persona. The former child star who played the adorable, talented little girl, Hanna Montana, has become this raunchy singer who seemed to reveal too much from what people used to see her.
This transition has disappointed a lot of Miley’s fans and the fans parents because they saw her as a role model and becoming a burlesque-like singer is not really role model material.
Even after all the disapproval on her new self, Miley continued on sharing her music to the public. Other people appreciated her music, but most thought it was just trashy.
Miley has not been very discreet on her shows as she was reported to be doing a lot of sexual acts on stage like having sex dolls and dildos while performing. Then, she released an intimate song called, “Wrecking Ball” that somehow reflected her tragedy with her failed relationship with Hemsworth. Miley was still very revealing in the video and she still did some crazy stuff. People even suggested that if only she could have simplified the music video, it would turn out as ingenious because the song is already beautifully-made.