The BBC's Kevin Bocquet: "To really get to grips with the new phrases, you'd have to study it twenty four - seven"

Or put another way, the north of England exclamation "Ee!" - indicating surprise or dismay - has been officially recognised by that arbiter of correct English, the Oxford Dictionary.

Fitting in snuggly between Edwardian and EEC, the phrase - most usually associated with cartoon strip hero Andy Capp and Manchester soap Coronation Street - is defined as a "northern English form of Oh!".

The new version of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) also finds room for the southern, attention-grabbing exclamation "Oy!".

Andy Capp: Ee 's champion

The editors of the new edition also include words such as "outie" - a homeless person - from South Africa.

Another new word finding its way into the COD is "greenwash" - an ecological version of whitewash, whereby a company covers up its actions in order to appear more environmentally-friendly.

Other new entries among the COD's 24,000 words are "docusoap", "Viagra" and "blokeish".

Penny Silva with John Humphries on Radio 4's Today: English enriched by borrowing

The phrase "24-7" - meaning 24 hours a day, seven days a week - and "Y2K", indicating the year 2000, are also included for the first time.

The abbreviation GM - indicating genetically-modified and grant-maintained, among other definitions - also makes its debut.

Corrupt English

Penny Silver, deputy chief editor of the COD, said the inclusion of new words from the English regions and abroad reflected their increasing use in everyday language.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "English has always been very good at corrupting itself.

"English enriches itself by borrowing.

"I don't think there is any danger of words getting in that are not important, because we have the Oxford world reading programme.