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September 2008, Vol. 10, No. 9 Thursday, May 23, 2013


Mock Merriam
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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:
Hodgkin: Mr & Mrs E. J. P.

replete
Pronunciation: \ri-plēt\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French replet, from Latin repletus, past participle of replēre to fill up, from re- + plēre to fill.
Date: 14th century
1: fully or abundantly provided or filled "a book replete with ... delicious details" — William Safire
2 a: abundantly fed b: FAT, STOUT
3: COMPLETE

Replete, which has long meant "abundantly provided or filled, abounding, filled to satiation," now, according to the charlatans at Merriam-Webster, also means complete. It may mean complete to people who know little, to people who feel that replete, perhaps because it rhymes with complete, is simply a synonym for complete, but that is no reason for Merriam-Webster to offer this definition in its odious dictionary.

Merriam-Webster's promotes the misuse of replete, but it does not include the far more interesting and useful misosophist.

Merriam-Webster: no longer "your assurance of quality and authority."

Mock Merriam.

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Do you find fault with an entry in the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary? Tell us what it is.

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