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MANILA, Philippines – Sometimes, when you’re madly in love with your partner, anniversaries are not enough.
That is the premise behind a “monthsary” – short for “monthly anniversary.” During monthsaries, couples – mostly teenagers and young adults – celebrate their relationship every month, and not wait for a full year before doing so.
“We go out on dates or surprise each other with gifts every 4th day of the month,” said 20-year-old Justine Navalta of Makati City. She and her boyfriend had just marked their 22nd month together.
There is one thing, though: the word “monthsary” cannot be found in print dictionaries like the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Neither is it in the latest edition of the Diksyunaryong Sentinyal ng Wikang Filipino (Centennial Dictionary of the Filipino Language). Or at least not yet.
“For a word to be included in the Diskyunaryong Sentinyal, it should be mainstream. It should also be widely used by the mass media, writers, or the academe,” said Jomar Cañega, senior language researcher and officer-in-charge of the Literature and Cultural Studies Division of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF, or the Commission on the Filipino Language).
Cañega added that new words go through a “frequency counting” test: if a word is widely used or recognized by at least half of the respondents in KWF surveys or studies, it goes into the dictionary. Otherwise, it remains a colloquial word, used in conversational language and informal writing.
As part of its mandate, the KWF conducts projects and studies to continually enrich the Filipino language and keep up with the times. They look mainly at print media like books and magazines, but they also look online and in social media for new words that are candidates for inclusion in the dictionary.
Other words for “monthsary”
That said, what does the Internet suggest as alternatives to the word “monthsary”?
One proposed term is “mensiversary,” derived from mensis, which is “month” in Latin. The word appears in online dictionaries like Wiktionary and Urban Dictionary, but not in Merriam-Webster or OED.
According to Grammarphobia.com, the earliest usage of the word can be traced to as far back as 1805, in a letter by Sir James Mackintosh, a jurist and politician from Scotland in the United Kingdom.
Other suggested words found online are:
- “mensual” (which appears in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
- “monthavesary” or “monthiversary”
- “lunaversary” (using the Latin word luna, or the moon)
- “uncianniversary” (using the Latin word uncia, meaning one-twelfth; it’s also the root of the word ounce)
Whatever the term, it doesn’t matter to Justine. The monthly celebrations, she said, spice up their relationship and make them appreciate each other’s company even more. – Rappler.com
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