Merriam-Webster Launches Open Dictionary

sweganeer writes "Merriam-Webster just released Open Dictionary to better take and share the pulse of language through the Web. Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online lexicography?"

Comments

Does this mean...

[Elrac]

that now SlashDotters will no longer have an excuse for poor spelling in their posts?

Re:Does this mean...

[gooman]

Sure, but their grammering ain't not going to be no better.

Haiku from the "DUH" Department

[Spinlock_1977]

Merriam-Webster?
An on-line dictionary?
Fucking brilliant boys!

Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have my chance to push the word I came up with in high school... Geriphilia (n.) - sexual perversion in which the elderly are the preferred sexual object.

Re:n: Liar, con-artist, oil theif, George W. Bush

[tomhudson]

You need a dictionary - you spelled "scum-sucking bottom-feeding cocksucker" wrong again. Oh, and you spelled "thief" wrong too.

Re:Slashdoting

[MNCaudill]

When you are "gerundding" a verb, checkking to see if you writting it in the correct manner is never a bad thing.

Open Dictionary

[sloths]

I hate it when I leave my dictionary open. I read on Wikipedia it isn't good for the spine.

Re:OOoh. How original.

[vagabond_gr]

Incorrect. Wiktionary is a free dictionary. This one is open. The distinction is important.

Thanks for the update, Richard.

Seriously, I totally agree. I would mod you up if I had some points.

There ain't no call for spell chequers here

[dbIII]

now SlashDotters will no longer have an excuse for poor spelling in their posts?

"Lat every felawe telle his tale aboute" from Chaucer sums up my view and should show that reading mispelled words and unconventional grammer is really not all of that hard. The language of the net is broken english, but not so broken as to make it too difficult to read, so live with it. If we all take spelling far too seriously things will degenerate into boring flame wars over whether the Oxford dictionary trumps the Webster. Spelling flames on a forum where "IP" has many meanings makes no sense at all.

Let's just talk about the shiny things and let other more formal forums worry about where to put their pronouns.

attention mr "editor"

[Clover_Kicker]

> Of course, Webster's has long celebrated and conveyed
> language's evolution - unlike linguistic prescriptivists who
> fail to grasp that's just what language does; and - where I've
> compared entries - they've certainly done so in a more
> consistent, professional fashion than online amateurs have in
> recent years: might Open Dictionary - in conjunction with
> Webster's standard Online Dictionary - yield the best of
> authoritative (top-down) and organic (bottom-up), online
> lexicography?"

Tip for the day - no sentence should have 70 words in it.

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