It's official. This year's newest words are out - thousands of them.

Merriam Webster Dictionary recently revealed oodles of new words for us to contemplate in its latest compilation of the English language's newest terminology.

The words range from the obvious: "hospitalist," a physician who specializes in treating hospitalized patients; to the obscure: "SERM," an acronym for selective estrogen receptor modulator, a type of drug.

As expected, computer lingo continues to dominate the list: "ZIP," a format for compressing electronic files; "keypal," an update of the more familiar pen pal; and "mouse potato," one who spends much of his or her leisure time in front of a computer.

And, for lexicologists who struggle to keep up with words that quantify a computer's ever-increasing capacity, there's "exabyte" (1,000 petabytes) and "petabyte" (1,000 terabytes).

Before mass communication, words took decades to make their way into official language, as they, like people, traveled more slowly from one region to another.

Today, however, new words get around, allowing them to make their way into - and sometimes out of - our language in record time.

"Track ball" officially made its dictionary debut in 1993, about a decade after personal computers were being marketed for mass consumption. But track ball is already being overshadowed with newer terminology, namely "track pad," according to etymologists who follow these things.

And if computer hardware continues to develop the way it appears to be, the dictionary lifespan of track ball may be as ephemeral as the life of a mayfly.

Now, I understand that the release of new words is hardly cause for celebration, but as a writer, I get excited. After all, words are the tools of the trade. And with more to choose from - well, you can never have too many words to work with.

People rarely take time to contemplate the power of words. They can incite, rage, pacify, lure, stimulate, and, yes, even bore. And while I deeply appreciate the power language holds - stringing together words in a various manner creates writing that can keep us riveted for hours - I enjoy words most for their sound.

Typed on a page, occupying space, words have less pizzazz. But when they roll off the tongue, they come alive. Emily Dickinson's says it best:

"A word is dead when it is said some say.

I say it just begins to live that day."

For that reason, I like the sound of words, especially multi-syllable ones, like juxtapose, scalawag, or coagulate. They have a crisp, marching sound that pleases the ear.

And even though there are tens of thousands of these more complex words to use, it is the one- and two-syllable words that serve us best. They are the backbone of communication.

The people at Merriam Webster have been tracking word use ever since the Merriam brothers purchased the Noah Webster Co. in 1843. As a writer and a former English teacher, I applaud their contributions to making our language more uniform and more universal.

The English language is ours to enjoy, and with this year's addition of the words "eye candy" (visually attractive person) and "wetware" (the human brain, especially when thought of as functionally equivalent to computer software), there's no telling how much fun we writers can have.