As some of you may know, the Chicago Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup, which is awarded in hockey when a team wins in the finals. Since they have won three times in the last six years, the media has been calling them a dynasty. This Yale law professor disagrees. He says that a dynasty is when there is a succession of rulers from the same family line for many years. For example, the Ming dynasty ruled for 276 years.

Carter thinks the whole sports championships are wrongly called dynasties, even though the OED has added this in 2009 "A run of success (by a team or club) which lasts for several seasons; a team or club achieving such success." About that additional definition, Carter says, "Here we see an example of the gatekeepers of the language potentially yielding not merely to colloquial usage but to bad colloquial usage. Today's casual awarding of the 'dynasty' label demeans the word.

Oh my. What do you think?

Given the actions of some so-called sports teams, I'd leave of the "dy" and just use "nasty."

Someone else who doesn't understand how dictionaries work.

Of course they could always produce their own dictionaries containing only the meanings they approve of. I can't imagine that it would be a very useful document though.

Well, that's right, Bob. While certainly his way is one definition, there are others too. Why get so heated about the whole thing?

He actually doesn't seem to disapprove of the use in sports as such - just that most writers use it prematurely. As he says:

quote:

In sports, we should reserve “dynasty” for teams that maintain their dominance over multiple generations of players.

Well, it's not used that way - the Bulls, for example, were said to have a dynasty when Michael Jordan was here - so he doesn't seem to agree that words evolve.

How often are they MIS-applied? To my admittedly prescriptivist way of thinking, this is a misapplication, or hyperbole - not intended literally.

I don't see it that way - so I don't think the definitions are "mis-applied." There are multiple definitions of the word, and here is the one I think applies (from the OED):

quote:

Sport (orig. U.S.). A run of success (by a team or club) which lasts for several seasons; a team or club achieving such success.

1925 Lowell (Mass.) Sun 20 Aug. 10/6 It may be that the present Athletics and Pirates, setting most of the pace in this year's pennant battles, are about to create new dynasties.
1972 N.Y. Times 21 May 81/1 Mr. Anderson constructed a dynasty in New Jersey scholastic football, with his teams achieving 16 state titles and 12 undefeated seasons.
1994 M. Bowden Bringing Heat vi. 156 The Cowboys were now a nascent dynasty.
2001 FourFourTwo Aug. 109/2 The club seemed on the brink of a second dynasty, one that could outdo the three straight European Cups won by John Cruyff's Ajax of the early 1970s.