Authors Alarmed As Oxford Junior Dictionary Drops Nature Words

Freshly Exhumed writes: Margaret Atwood, Andrew Motion, and Michael Morpurgo are among 28 authors criticizing Oxford University Press's decision to scrap a number of words associated with nature from its junior dictionary. In an open letter (PDF) released on Monday, the acclaimed writers said they are "profoundly alarmed" and urged the publisher to reinstate words cut since 2007 in the next edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Among words to be dropped are acorn, blackberries, and minnows.

Comments

What can you expect?

[BarbaraHudson]

What can you expect from a dictionary publisher that picked "selfie" as the word of the year in 2013 and "vape" for 2014

Who remembers Archimedes and RISC OS?

[tepples]

They also removed Acorn, whose most lasting impact is probably the spinoff ARM Ltd. that maintains the instruction set used in these mobile computers.

Re:Literally

[ScentCone]

This tends to drive language purists insane. They seem to endlessly complain when popular "made up" words get added to the dictionary, without really stopping to consider that every single word in the dictionary was "made up" at some point in history, as was every grammar rule in existence.

Most complaints about change in language aren't about the introduction of some new meme-ish neologism or term that's sprung into use. The real (and justified) complaints are about changes that reflect a reduction in clarity, or which make expression surrounding critical thinking or subtlety less fashionable or in real terms more difficult. Changes in language that dumb communication down should indeed be fought against, and loudly. Giving in to the habits of the incurious, the poor communicators, and the lazy is just a way to make more of them.