As you probably know, the new online edition of the OED is going to add 2,000 more words. I heard a report on NPR about it, and here are a few sites. Link and Link
I know that dictionaries just describe the language...I learned that here. Still, I feel a little like the author in statepress.com, with all due respect to our colleague, John Simpson, who met some of us for a beer in Oxford:
quote:
The changes seem to be made to keep up with changing times and colloquialisms, but do we really need chillax and frenemy in our dictionary? These trendy words don’t have much of a chance over time, and just because people say these things frequently doesn’t necessarily mean we need to make them “real” words. UrbanDictionary.com already covers those bases, and the majority of us probably don’t even own a paper-and-glue dictionary anyway – we look it up online. Besides, when did a word have to be in a dictionary for people to use it?
What are your thoughts on this? Am I all wet? Most likely.
I also think there needs to be a new discipline: Internet Technology Linguists. We sure get a lot of words from the Internet now, don't we? I suppose it makes sense.
How does this guy know that chillax and frenemy won't last? Anyway, even if they don't, someone in the future may well come across them,wonder what they mean, and turn to the dictionary. If the word isn't there, the dictionary will have failed in its purpose.
It strikes me that the writer doesn't know what a dictionary is for.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Just to be clear, the online dictionary being updated is the ODE (The Oxford Dictionary of English), not the OED (The Oxford English Dictionary). See Visual Thesaurus.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Part of whether to add words to the dictionary should be whether they are being used in some kind of written text without being glossed. Who knows but 20 years down the trail, somebody might try to read something written 20 years ago and need to look up an unfamiliar word in the dictionary.
Well, arnie, I am confused the. If it is the ODE, and not the OED, one of those articles I cited did they mentions John Simpson as the editor. Does he edit both? We know he edits the OED. However, I see you are right as here is the transcript of that program.
quote:
Who knows but 20 years down the trail, somebody might try to read something written 20 years ago and need to look up an unfamiliar word in the dictionary.
They'd have trouble understanding my Blog, then, wouldn't they? In all seriousness, it does seem to be somewhat of a crap-shoot about the words that are chosen and the ones that are not.
