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You're Thinking About the Dictionary All Wrong, Lexicographers Say (theoutline.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Outline: It seems like ever since "bootylicious" was added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in 2004, dictionaries have been trying to play catch up to ever-evolving languages of slang, especially when it comes to words originating with African Americans and other communities of color. User-generated definitions found on websites like Urban Dictionary and Genius are also giving them some competition. But in fact, lexicographers have always intended the dictionary to be more of an archive than an authority. The purpose of the dictionary has always been to record how language is being used, but the internet has allowed publishers and lexicographers to communicate that purpose differently, explained Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, to The Outline. "I think people assume that because dictionaries are dusty books that the language is this dusty book or that language is only what you find in the dictionary," Stamper said. "And to be able to say, 'No, language is always on the move and here's how it's moving,' really mirrors the way that we can interact with people online." Thanks to the internet, it's now easier for lexicographers to access more written materials and take note of the ways people are using and producing language. And as a result, dictionaries are updated more frequently and more robustly than they were in the days of print-only source material. "Woke" was just one of 1200 new additions to the OED this quarter alone. But even with all the technology afforded to them, lexicographers still walk a fine line between including words that are well-known enough without being too obscure. "We joke around that when we add new words we want 50 percent of the people who see that new word to say, 'Oh my gosh that's not in the dictionary yet?'" said Stamper, who writes for Merriam-Webster. "And then we want the other half of people to go, 'I don't even know what this word is. Why are you adding it to the dictionary?'"
They insist on teaching things in a very despotic manner, creating grammar nazis.
We need to teach people that it is ok to create a word, as long as you define it clearly. Spelling should explain legal variations and why they are accepted.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Woke was just added? I've heard people say "I just woke up" for decades.
Is this real, or one of those "The word 'gullible' is not in the dictionary" scenarios?
"Experts" say "non-experts" are wrong about something.
...The purpose of the dictionary has always been to record how language is being used...
Not all dictionaries have the same philosophy when it comes to definitions. I prefer the Random House Unabridged dictionary from about 20 years ago, instead of a Merriam Webster dictionary from the same time period. The reason for my preference is simple, the Random House Unabridged was a very conservative dictionary. It did not accept and document just any spelling or usage of a word. It prescribed correct usage. While the Merriam-Webster dictionary was a lot quicker to document and accept new spellings and usages. It described the more current usage.
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I still use the Random House Unabridged dictionary. Disk capacity has increased enough since the 90's that I now can easily fit the entire CD-ROM image of the dictionary with all its 350,000 words and all of the spoken pronunciations on my hard drive (actually a SSD).
I use Urban Dictionary to keep me up to date on the more current words. But for the day in, day out, definitions, I still go to the more conservative Randon House Unabridged.
No, it mean a words mean whatever the majority of speakers in a specific dialectal region agree they mean. Language is a fundamental cultural activity.
The way dictionaries were once described tjlo me was that they were descriptive, not proscriptive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It seems to me that the confusion is because dictionaries have both functions. Yes, they've always been intended to be descriptive, providing a guide to the language as people actually use it. But they've also always had some tendency to be prescriptive, telling people what the accepted correct usage is. A good example is with word pairs like imply/infer or compose/comprise, where there's a "standard" usage that gives each word a distinct and non-overlapping meaning and a common usage where they can be used interchangeably for some meanings. A good dictionary will list the overlapping meaning but provide a note saying that it's non-standard usage.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I have no problems with any generally or even somewhat generally-used word being placed in the dictionary. It only serves to help people decode what is being said out there in the real-world.
My issue is that many people believe that just because a word is contained in the dictionary, that it somehow validates the word as "proper" English. Those same people tend to miss the coding for "slang", "improper", "colloquial", "informal", and "vulgar" in the definition. Of course the recent trend is now to down-play those categories and coding in fear they might, gasp, offend someone. Thus, the political-correctness movement often erodes the effectiveness of communication. Also, speaking and writing with poor grammar and word choices does put one at a disadvantage when seeking to be taken seriously or professionally.
My best English teacher would be rolling in her grave if she heard some of what many supposedly educated people say nowadays (of course, I suppose each generation could say that :) )
If human spoken language was as rigid and rule abiding as programming language,
we will probably be still communicating by "Ug !"s and "Arg!"s.
And hitting with club the head of anyone not following the same caveman conventions as anyone else.
Language evolve. New words and rules are constantly created, as people continue to speak.
Some variation become widespread and eventually aren't considered as errors anymore as poeple get used to them and start using them too.
And that's how you end-up speaking english, which doesn't look much like old-english, which in turn has evolved further from Germanic root, etc.
In fact even programming language aren't that much solid. ...
Language evolve as new idea enters the standards (see the evolution of K&R C, ANSI C (C89/C90 and C95), C99, C11...)
Even the different languages themselves are a sign of evolution, after all we aren't all still programming in Assembler, but we have moved to tons of languages like Fortran, C/C++, LISP, Perl, Python, Javascript, Rust,
The only main difference being, as computer arent as good (yet) as humans to infer from context, one need presicion in programming as you mention, and language tend to have clear rules and systems of standards and extensions. (Okay, and then there is Perl).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
> But in fact, lexicographers have always intended the dictionary to be more of an archive than an authority. The purpose of the dictionary has always been to record how language is being used...
Au contraire! For a long time dictionaries were more prescriptive than descriptive. They described how words ought to be used in correct or standard English, not how people were actually using (or mis-using) them. A lot of people liked it that way. They liked getting some guidance from their dictionary, and being able to settle questions with it. Now that's out of fashion, and dictionaries have become all about documenting whatever is being written or spoken.
I still keep a copy of Webster's New International Dictionary Second Editon Unabridged with Reference History from 1934 (the notorious "dord" dictionary!) because I like its authoritative stance and its extra material which made it almost like a mini-encyclopedia. (And I still keep a copy of The Elements of Style around too, so everyone will know what a linguistic dinosaur I am.)