Just When I Thought I Knew Every Possible Reason to Dislike Merriam-Webster ...

... I learned that, according to Merriam Webster, we copy editors don't copy edit. We copyedit.

I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying it's gross, unseemly, disorienting, and disturbing. Other dictionaries let me copy edit, why can't Merriam?

Wonderings and Googlings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)

It's in the dictionary = 23,800 hits

It's in a dictionary = 88 hits

In September, in a Mediabistro class I sometimes teach, I mentioned some disagreements between dictionaries. Students were shocked. They hadn't known that dictionaries disagreed with each other. They especially hadn't known that two dictionaries containing the name "Webster" — such as "Merriam-Webster" and "Webster's New World" — could disagree.

Like so many other people I've encountered, they thought a dictionary is a dictionary is a dictionary — it's all "THE dictionary."

I think that, in our brave new marketing-obsessed world, this is becoming a problem. It creates an incentive for attention-seeking lexicographers to make bad choices. Take, for example, yesterday's Comcast news headline: 'Meh': Apathetic expression enters dictionary.

I learned about this news story on an Internet message board on which a user announced that the word was now in "the dictionary." But it's not. It's in A dictionary — Collins English Dictionary — whose publishers, I bet, sent out a press release announcing the sassy new addition.

If more people realized just how different dictionaries are, dictionary makers would not be awarded the instant clout they now have. Fewer people would accept any one dictionary's word as gospel. And there would be less incentive to eschew serious lexicography in favor of press-release-driven, headline-seeking dictionary additions.

I'm not saying "meh" is a bad word to include in a dictionary. Personally, I like it. As I've discusssed before, I just worry that Collins is part of a trend in which ethical and scholarly lexicography is being undermined by PR whoring.

Dictionaries Gone Wild

Webster's New World College Dictionary does not contain the word "McJob." American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's fourth edition doesn't have it, either. Merriam-Webster does.

Webster's New World does not contain the term "air quotes." American Heritage doesn't have "air quotes." Merriam-Webster does.

Webster's New World does not list "dead presidents" as a synonym for money. American Heritage doesn't, either. Merriam-Webster does.

Webster's New World does not list "accidently" as an alternate spelling of "accidentally." American Heritage does, which surprises me. But Merriam-Webster's choice to report this spelling does not.

Webster's New World doesn't list "Frankenfood." Neither does American Heritage. Merriam-Webster does.

In the introduction to his 2005 Dictionary of Disagreeable English, "grumbling grammarian" Robert Hartwell Fiske examines Merriam-Webster's judgment, as reflected in its 11th collegiate edition, to make two points: 1. that dictionaries need to be more prescriptivist and less descriptivist, and 2. that Merriam-Webster are attention whores.

His first point is hogwash. But his second point is dead on.

Fiske and I would not hit it off at a cocktail party. Fiske hates language liberals, of which I'm one. But my liberalism has its limits. There's a difference between free love and prostitution. And Merriam-Webster's ability to make the NBC Nightly News website has "toot toot, hey, beep beep" written all over it.





I don't have in hand a copy of whatever press release Merriam might have used to score this segment on the home page of a nationally respected news program. But based on my experience receiving and sending press releases, I'd bet dollars to donuts that it touted some of Merriam's quirky, "fun," headline-grabbing new additions.

Fiske says of Merriam-Webster's approach: "It's a marketing strategy. It's not lexicography." I agree. A lot of people might ask, "What's wrong with that?" I have an answer.

Imagine you're the sweet, slightly mousy wallflower who has decided to try speed dating amid friends' assurances of, "Just be yourself. Guys will see how great you are." And imagine you get there and see that one of the other women is wearing a soaking-wet cropped T-shirt and starting every conversation by singing a few bars of "Do You Think I'm a Nasty Girl?"

You may not try speed dating again, but if you did, you'd definitely slap on some mascara first.

When dictionary-making takes its marketing strategy to Girls Gone Wild extremes, they lower the bar for all dictionaries.

Yes, dictionaries should be descriptivist. They should document how people use the language. But at the same time they must bear in mind the responsibility that comes with the job. Once they "document" a usage, they have, inadvertently or not, sanctioned it.

This is a responsibility that, before we reached the apex of our our cola-wars culture, they handled quite well. But with Merriam-Webster setting the terms of the competition, that may not be the case much longer.

Merriam-Webster seems to operate on a, "Hey, we're just reporting it, we're not saying it's right" philosophy. But they know perfectly well that, inadvertently, they are saying it's right. They should stop cheating and get back in the ring with the serious lexicographers who compete for our dollars by aspiring to quality through editorial and academic integrity.