The Decline of the Dictionary

The Weekly Standard has an interesting article about the practices of dictionary publishers. Not that I’ve ever been mistaken for ‘Mr. Vocabulary’, but there are some things in this article that have bothered me for years. And the more blogs & online forums I read the more these things bother me. Here are some of the issues (emphasis is mine):

This new slang-filled edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary does as much as, if not more than, the famously derided Webster’s Third International Dictionary to discourage people from taking lexicographers seriously. “Laxicographers” all, the Merriam-Webster staff remind us that dictionaries merely record how people use the language, not necessarily how it ought to be used. Some dictionaries, and certainly this new Merriam-Webster, actually promote illiteracy.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to distinguish their product, of course, but when it means tampering with the English language–by including idiotic slang and omitting infinitely more useful words–it’s reprehensible.

Merriam-Webster proclaims it has added some ten thousand words to its Collegiate Dictionary. To do so, as a company spokesman admitted, “some words had to be kicked out” of the earlier edition. More interesting than this new edition would be a book of the words abandoned…

As most people know by now, dictionary makers today merely record how the language is used, not how the language ought to be used. That is, lexicographers are descriptivists, language liberals. People using “disinterested” when they mean “uninterested” does not displease a descriptivist.

A prescriptivist, by contrast, is a language conservative, a person interested in maintaining standards and correctness in language use. To prescriptivists, “disinterested” in the sense of “uninterested” is the result of uneducated people not knowing the distinction between the two words. And if there are enough uneducated people saying “disinterested” (and I’m afraid there are) when they mean “uninterested” or “indifferent,” lexicographers enter the definition into their dictionaries. Indeed, the distinction between these words has all but vanished owing largely to irresponsible writers and boneless lexicographers.

There are other examples of Merriam-Webster’s inexcusably shoddy dictionary-making. According to the dictionary’s editors, the spelling “accidently” is as valid as “accidentally”; the verb “predominate” is also an adjective meaning “predominant”; “enormity” means the same as “enormousness”; “infer” means the same as “imply”; and “peruse” means not only to examine carefully but to read over in a casual manner. The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary actually promotes the misuse of the English language.

That a president can ask “Is our children learning?,” a basketball star can use the word “conversate,” a well-known college professor can say “vociferous” when he means “voracious,” and another can scold a student for using the word “juggernaut” because she believes it means “jigaboo” is disturbing. But these are precisely the sorts of errors, if enough people make them, that the staff at Merriam-Webster will one day include in their dictionaries

I’ve always understood that dictionaries and languages adapt and change, but some of this stuff just doesn’t seem right to me. Maybe I’m just getting old.