|
|
| |
|
The eleventh edition of "America's Best-Selling Dictionary," Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Frederick C. Mish, editor in chief), 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 reminds us that dictionaries merely record how people use the language, not how people ought to use the language. Some dictionaries, and certainly this edition of Merriam-Webster, actually promote illiteracy.
Consider the following entry from the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's, and perhaps you, too, will mock Merriam:
|
alright adv. or adj.: all right.
Usage: The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing.
All it takes for a solecism to become standard English is people misusing or misspelling the word. And if enough people do so, lexicographers will enter the originally misused or misspelled word into their dictionaries, and descriptive linguists will embrace it as a further example of the evolution of English.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, like other college dictionaries, actually promotes the misuse of the English language. Dictionaries are ever more a catalog of confusions, a list of illiteracies. Dictionaries acknowledge the errors that people make; by acknowledging them they, in effect, endorse them; by endorsing them, they are thought correct by the dull, duped public. Ultimately, all words will mean whatever we think they mean, indeed, whatever we want them to mean.
The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's includes the inanity alright, but it does not include the far more interesting and useful womanfully.
Merriam-Webster: no longer "your assurance of quality and authority."
Mock Merriam.
 More Mock Merriam
Do you find fault with an entry in the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary? Tell us what it is.
|
Do you prize well-spoken, well-written language? Do you believe all right is correct and alright is nonsense, that predominant is an adjective and predominate a verb, that they and them are exclusively plural pronouns, that blithering politicians ought not to be elected to higher office, that a society is generally as lax as its language? If so ...
Become a Card-Carrying Votary of Vocabula
Votary of Vocabula
____________[Your Name Here]____________
prizes well-spoken, well-written language.
The Vocabula Review
|
www.vocabula.com
|
A society is generally as lax as its language.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese by Adam FreedmanBuy a Book from Vocabula and Receive a Subscription to VocabulaDonate $50 to The Vocabula Review and receive The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese, as well as a yearlong subscription to The Vocabula Review, itself a $40 value. Adam Freedman, who writes the Legal Lingo column for the New York Law Journal, offers a cornucopia of hilarious, offbeat, and downright bizarre examples of simple concepts contorted into words that defy understanding, often retaining centuries-old lingo like Further affiant sayeth naught (which means: this is the end of the affidavit). Freedman is as much reformer as humorist, and he ably demonstrates that legal documents can be written in understandable prose.
This offer is good only if you buy a book directly from Vocabula. The free Vocabula subscription does not apply if you buy from Amazon. Once you've made your donation, you must email us at info@vocabula.com so that we know who you are and what book you would like. Copies are limited.
Free advertising in Vocabula |
|
|
|
Previous page
Back to Top
TVR Home
