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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?"
... at least for a laugh.
"Powers. I have them."
I've seen dictionaries in public libraries where people have ripped out the pages those two words were found on, as well as "cunt". At least they can't do that with the online version.
The idea for an open dictionary has been around since 1860, and in print since the 1920s (I believe).
Take a gander at "The Meaning of Everything" a book by Simon Winchester. It outlines the fascinating story of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED is THE dictionary by the way: it is a 30+ volume set that sets out to catalogue every word in the English language and is continuously updated.
How do the updates happen? Readers throughout the world read texts and write out definitions on slips that are returned to the OED offices for compilation and review. Think about the enormity of the undertaking back in the Victorian era. It's really an outstanding achievement.
English has never, ever been a prescriptive language. We've never had a council declaring what stays and what leaves the language.
Anyway, read the book and be duly unimpressed by these half-assed efforts for an on-line dictionary. Go to the nearest university and take a look at the full OED in all its glory.
First of all: prescriptive linguistics is not bound to induce linguistic stasis, it can be and has been intended to force a change in a language. This alone makes the issue more one of how much should the government interfere with everyday life, not one of whether government should conserve their state language against "foreign influence", whatever that may be.
Now what strict prescriptivist critics and advocates both fail to grasp: The evolution of a language common to one cultural or sub-cultural group is exclusively driven by the people of that respective group, in the most direct, democratic sense. Ultimately, no number of laws and recommendations will have lasting influence on how a natural every-day language evolves or does not evolve unless they mirror the majority's opinion (in which case the laws have been irrelevant to begin with anyway). Beware the day when that changes, for then "1984" will have come to full reality, because then The Man will have taken control of your thoughts. If you control language, the tool of your thoughts, then all your brains are belong to us, if you so prefer.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
"Cunt" is an old word and if it's not included in old dictionaries this must be because of prudery not because it wasn't in use. In fact it goes way back and originally had a perfectly ordinary meaning - specifically a "cleft". The gap in a rope where two strands lie against one another is still called a "cuntline" by riggers and sailmakers.
I have a very dear friend who teaches college level english classes. I have, on more than one occasion, helped her grade papers. Sadly, it generally looks like I've slashed my wrists over the pile of papers by the time I've done. These students do not know the difference between "there", "their", and "they're" and use all of the interchangably. They also do not know the difference between "two", "too", and "to". I have seen 3-page papers that were a single run-on sentence. The only period in the whole paper was on the last page at the end. You should have seen what they did with commas and semi-colons.
When she started failing these students for not being proficient in what is ostensibly their native tongue, she got reprimanded for failing too many of them. Her superiors told her that she must learn to curve the grade so that more of them will pass. Her contention is that if you are not literate, you do not deserve to be in regular college classes. She felt like these students should be in remedial classes. When they threatened to fire her for refusing to change some of her students grades, she quit and went to work at another university. How much good is a college degree if you can pop open a crackerjack box and yank one out?
2 cents,
Queen B
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