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"Bacne" is an official contender for the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the editors have confirmed.

That's right. The word used to describe back acne could soon join the ranks of words like "chortle," a word made up by Lewis Carroll, the author who wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in the 1860s. Carroll combined "chuckle" and "snort" to create chortle.

Sort of the same, right?

The new potential dictionary addition got us wondering about other weird health words we take for granted. Where did they come from and why are they here?

Click through to find out where "bacne" came from and learn the origins of such words as "booger," "zit," "wart" and more.

Believe it or not, the term "bacne" didn't come from a bunch of mean high school girls.

Not at first, anyway.

It first appeared online in 1994, when people were speculating about whether certain pro wrestlers were on steroids. Back acne was considered a sign of steroid use, and the two words soon morphed into bacne, said Ben Zimmer, a linguist and executive producer of Vocabulary.com who has written about words for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

But by the late 1990s, mean teenagers were saying it, and it often accompanied such subjects as "band geek," said Katherine Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries at Oxford University Press. "Many people other than pro wrestlers get bacne," Martin said with a laugh, explaining that if the word was only used in one community, it wouldn't be dictionary-worthy. "This was a word the world was ready for."

Booger originated with a supernatural figure: the boogeyman, Martin said. (Or a boggart, if you're not speaking American English. Think Harry Potter.)

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'Bacne' and Other Weird Health Word Origins

Last week a Washington anecdote offered a glimpse into the mental state of the Washington press corps, as White House press secretary Jay Carney faced a reportorial rebellion around an unexpected issue: metaphors.

It was a Rashomon-like incident, in which reporters either presumptuously chided a government official for his phraseology or they resolutely refused to accept evasion when the public deserved answers. But which was it?

Scott Wilson of the Washington Post reported on the insurrection over Carneys use of language. Carney had described the GOPs actions around the government shutdown and the debt ceiling debate with words like matches and gasoline and nuclear weapon (a weapon that Republicans were allegedly keeping in a back pocket).

But the term that finally provoked an outburst was ransom, a word the administration has deployed many times in recent days. When Carney began a comment by saying The president will not pay ransom for he was interrupted by Ari Shapiro from NPR, who told Carney that the word ransom was a metaphor which doesnt serve our purposes.

It sounds like a highhanded comment, but maybe you had to be there. Shapiro obviously was, and he said this in an email exchange with Salon: I might have used a different phrase than suit our purposes if Id scripted it in advance, but I was speaking off the cuff Carney wasnt helping us understand the White Houses actual position on whether a six-month debt ceiling bill would be enough to bring the president to the table.

Shapiro certainly wasnt alone in his discontent. The Post reported that he shouted back at Carney with broad support from other journalists.

You guys are just too literal then, right? Carney replied. As the press room exploded in hubbub, Carney muttered phrases as if to himself: the closing of the American mind the failure to appreciate metaphor and simile .

The moment brought to mind the Surrealists of the 1920s or the Situationists of the 1960s: a revolt over style, the White House press corps as vanguard for a revolution in language, thought and perception. Shapiro quickly killed that speculation with his retort: We just want to accurately report, he told Carney. Were trying to be accurate in our description of whats going on.

Its easy to sympathize. The president, a self-described Rorschach test, can be evasive. He often does it gracefully, like one of those post-Newtonian physical phenomena that are both particle and wave at the same time. His officials, on the other hand, have proven less adept in practicing the art of evasion. Anyone whos been on the receiving end of this practice knows it can be a maddening experience.

Thats a minor aggravation that only affects a few people. Whats more important is the question that went unanswered. As Shapiro put it in a blog post, Carney explained that Obama will have conversations but wont pay a ransom (but) one mans negotiation is another mans conversation is another mans ransom.

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We retort, we decide: This is the real mainstream press bias

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Press hails 'magnificent' night, but play down World Cup hopes

October 16, 2013

"Allah" means God, unless you are a non-Muslim Malaysian, in which case you have to find another word.

After a recent court ruling in the country, Allah can now be used only to refer to the Muslim God, and non-Muslims (mainly the Malaysian Christian Catholic community and press) have been banned from using it.

It is a decision that has inflamed opinion among minority religions and disheartened Muslims.

Apart from all the practical implications of this (re-printing Bibles and so on), there are other intangible but more heartfelt grievances.

At first glance it looks like a petty scuffle over semantics, but the roots of the dispute go deep into the issue of national identity.

The ruling was flimsily justified by the "risk" of conversion. Announcing the change, the judge said: "It is my judgment that the possible and most probable threat to Islam, in the context of this country, is the propagation of other religions to the followers of Islam."

But the ban is less about religion than about putting non-Malay minorities in their place, subordinating their status to that of Muslims, the majority population.

The issue is made more complex by the fact that "Allah" is an Arabic loan-word and, when imported into other languages, can come to be thought of as a proper noun.

On my first day at a British school, a teacher going around the class and asked us what our respective non-Christian gods were called. When I floundered, she exasperatedly told me that my god was called Allah, and I couldn't quite explain to her why that felt wrong.

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The Malaysian “Allah” ban is about putting minorities in their place - Nesrine Malik

DGAP-News: H&R AG / Key word(s): Preliminary Results H&R AG: Third quarter 2013 once again demonstrated better earnings performance than the preceding three months.

14.10.2013 / 10:30

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H&R Aktiengesellschaft:

Third quarter 2013 once again demonstrated better earnings performance than the preceding three months. - Publication of preliminary results for Q3 2013

- Upward profitability trend continued

- Full compliance with all financial covenants

- Outlook confirmed

(N.B.: All figures quoted in this press release concerning the third quarter of 2013 are preliminary)

Salzbergen, 11 October 2013. H&R AG closed the first nine months of 2013 with preliminary sales of EUR 941.1 million. At the same time, at EBITDA adjusted for one-time effects of approximately EUR 25 million, operating profits for the first three quarters fell sharply behind the comparable period in 2012 (first nine months of 2012: EUR 46.3 million).

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DGAP-News: H&R AG: Third quarter 2013 once again demonstrated better earnings performance than the preceding three ...