THEY are wordsmiths with a genius for originality whose linguistic inventions have passed into everyday usage and given us a greater understanding of what it means to be human: Shakespeare. Dickens. Joyce. Dowie.

Iain Dowie may have failed to preserve Crystal Palace’s Barclays Premiership status but he has secured himself a place in history as the author of “bouncebackability”, one of 1,500 new words in the latest edition of the Collins English Dictionary. Football-speak has an oblique relationship with the English language and while Ron Atkinson’s removal from the commentary box seems to have slowed the flow of neologisms , Dowie is not the only manager capable of producing coinages as well as corner routines. Also giving the dictionary some verbals is Sir Alex Ferguson, whose memorable description of the climax of the 2002-03 campaign, “squeaky bum time”, is another addition.

There is a nod to terrace chant culture with the inclusion of “Ingerland”, the fans’ solution to the unmelodic shortage of a third syllable in “England”.

Justin Crozier, an editor of the dictionary, which is out today, said: “Language doesn’t belong to professors and lexicographers, it belongs to its everyday users and that’s what we want to reflect. The language of the terraces is real, spoken language.”

The first citation of bouncebackability was in September last year, with the word passing into common football parlance by December. It has four times as many recorded instances of usage than a typical neologism according to Collins’ database of words, underlining its popularity. “Bouncebackability works better than resilience, and squeaky bum time is almost poetic in the way it describes nervousness at the end of the season,” Crozier said.

“Galactico”, the Spanish term that, roughly, means “highly-paid, famous Real Madrid footballer who has lots of skill but wins no trophies”, is added. Few at Stamford Bridge will need to thumb to the “T” section to find out what “tapping-up” means. Reflecting football’s trends, “groundshare” and “silver goal” are fresh inclusions. Jargon from rugby, cricket and extreme sports is also featured.

The Lions will aim to avoid being “monstered” this month by the All Blacks; England’s batsmen will hope they are not victims of an Australian version of “chin music” (a baseball term for a ball thrown near the head). This summer, the Ashes could bring another set of neologisms to popular attention. “There’s the Antipodean thing of making everything shorter. Australians love to shorten. Why say ‘scrum half’ when ‘scrummy’ will do?” Crozier said.

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