‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ Is Officially Part of the English Language Now

Nathan Rabin has expressed mixed feelings about coining the phrase “manic pixie dream girl,” but today he’s feeling like a proud papa. 

Today, Manic Pixie Dream Girl joins bling bling and jiggy as phrases officially recognized by the Oxford dictionary. Couldn’t be prouder.

— Nathan Rabin (@nathanrabin) August 27, 2015

That’s right: Along with such ubiquitous neologisms as “manspreading” and “awesomesauce,” MPDG, which comes from Rabin’s 2007’s My Year of Flops entry on Cameron Crowe’s “Elizabethtown” and is defined as “(especially in film) a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist,” has been added to the Oxford Dictionary, which is as close to officially becoming part of the English language as you can get.

Here’s the explanation, with the appropriate Rabin shout-out:

And here’s Rabin, Oxford Dictionaries-explainer style.