Each year, the Oxford English Dictionary adds new words to its pages. In 2010 the words de-friend, chillax, and micro-blogging were added to the collection. New words are constantly being created in order to describe our ever-changing world and I heard a word yesterday that could be in contention for the 2011 edition:
Twibling
What’s a twibling you ask? Twiblings are two biological embryos fertilized at the same time and born to two different surrogate mothers. Since they are nurtured by two separate women, they have the potential to be born on separate days, even though gestationally they are the same age. Therefore they are siblings but not twins – twiblings.
The New York Times first introduced the term here in its story about twiblings Violet and Kieran Thernstrom, and The Today Show picked it up in yesterday’s broadcast:
I can not believe that there’s a term for this! What’s next, triblings, quadlings, quintlings? As those two babies grow older, how will they introduce one another to people they meet? “Hi I’m Violet and this is my twibling Kieran.” If so, they are going to be explaining the story of their conception to everyone they come across.
Although this would not be the way I’d go about having a family, I don’t have an issue with it as long as the children are properly taken care of and well adjusted. I just can’t believe what science and technology can achieve in 2011. It will be interesting to see if this concept catches on, although I doubt it will.
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