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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?"
An "Open dictionary"?
Gee. Where have I heard of that before?
Wiktionary.org
that now SlashDotters will no longer have an excuse for poor spelling in their posts?
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
I'm going to make a few points defending prescriptive teaching of language. Although it's absurd to say that there is one right way to speak English (or any other language), and it's also absurd to set down hard and fast rules like "thou shalt only use 'good' as an adjective", saying that one thing is "correct" and another "incorrect", it is important to know how to accurately convey meaning, speak in a way that will not alienate your audience, and get your point across persuasively and effectively. That is what all good prescriptivists advocate.
Le français vous intéresse?
> 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.
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.