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

Understandable, given the market share

[by (1706743)]

I'm assuming they kept "iPhone" and "Android," and just removed "Blackberries"...

Re:Understandable, given the market share

[stephanruby]

It's actually all part of their new freemium strategy. They give away their junior dictionary for free, or for below cost. But then, when the kid really needs to find a word like "forest" because the kid has actually no idea what a "forest" is outside the context of Minecraft, and the school purposefully makes him read completely outdated tree-hugging communist manifestos from long dead authors that may contain the word "forest" in them, then the parent feels naturally obligated to upgrade to the next version.

Mmm...

[Etherwalk]

All of these are things a kid should come across while growing up in a few parts of the world.

Acorn is an especially disappointing word to lose--suddenly all these things falling from the sky don't have a word. We just live in a world where things fall from the sky and are undefined.

Minnows are a bit strange to lose because it's a basic fish, for a pet or for feeding to pets or for following. But I suppose you could always learn the word when you got the pet.

Finally, did they get rid of blackberries because it was racist?

Re:Mmm...

[93 Escort Wagon]

I've got both acorns and blackberries growing in my yard. Not sure what I'm supposed to call them now...

More seriously - there has to be more to it than that, but possibly finding out would involve clicking the link and reading, and that would itself require a higher level of interest in this story than I actually possess.

Re:Mmm...

[Dutch Gun]

First off, it's not as though these words have been struck from the English lexicon. Seriously... do kids nowadays rely exclusively on the Oxford Junior Dictionary instead of doing a quick web search or consulting a more complete dictionary? I don't recall ever in my life using a "kid's" dictionary during my school years. We used the big ones right from the start.

It wasn't always perfect, of course. I recall asking my teacher what a word meant, and she correctly told me that I should look it up in the dictionary myself. I did so, found the word, and it was defined by a different word I didn't know. I looked up that word, and it used the first word in it's definition. My teacher then relented and explained the word to me herself. That's why kids have teachers and parents.

All in all, a tempest in a teacup. Kids will learn these words once they graduate to more complete resources. No big deal. Side note: I'll bet "tempest" isn't in the junior dictionary either.

Doubleplusgood

[Anonymous Coward]

The first edition of the newspeak dictionary is out. Doubleplusgood news brothers!

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

Re:What can you expect?

[_xeno_]

Well, yes, but as your own link explains:

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a word or expression that has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date.

So it's less that they chose those words and more that we, as English speakers, chose them.

Simple Definition

[Roger W Moore]

What constitutes a forest might be complicated in the UK. But it's simple in the US .

No, what constitutes a forest is simple everywhere. It is just defined as ...er... a ...um... ok who who thought dropping 'forest' from the dictionary was a good idea?

Re:Simple Definition

[camperdave]

Ask a pirate?

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:Daddy, where do trees come from?

[PPH]

Sort algorithms.

Re:Literally

[Dutch Gun]

"Incorrect" in languages is only incorrect until we change the rules. If common language usage becomes inconsistent with the current written rules, at some point it makes more sense to change the rules to reflect the actual usage than to try to correct usage en mass*. 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.

Languages continually evolve over time - there's nothing more or less "official" about our modern English language versus the English language of 500 years ago, even though there are significant differences. The point of a language is to communicate with each other, and just as our technology continues to evolve, so does the way in which we communicate.

* For example, since this is Slashdot, consider the attempt to encourage the public to distinguish between "hacker" and "cracker". That distinction never gained any ground, and it's likely it never will. Likewise, almost no one calls the Linux operating system GNU/Linux outside a few die-hard FSF folks.

Small subset

[jklovanc]

The Oxford Junior Dictionary contains about 3% of the Oxford English Dictionary. Some words need to be swapped out to make room for words that are more relevant to the users.

Re:Literally

[Dutch Gun]

When pretty much every English dictionary is in agreement on a revised definition, then we can safely conclude it's more than just a few ignorant kids posting on Facebook and Twitter.

I find it somewhat amusing to be defending the use of the "non-correct" definition of "literally" because honestly, it really irritates me as well. So, you and I can continue being irritated until the day we die, or we can accept that people are going to use the term in a figurative sense (rather ironic, given the original definition), and get on with our lives. If it makes you feel any better, keep in mind that even the new dictionary definition indicates that this is an "informal" use, so it's still not appropriate to use in most written works.

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.