You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
All the new words in the world.
Words like TWEET and FIST BUMP and DOWNLOAD and FACEBOOK.
As the Earth travels around the sun, year after year, the times change, and the words that describe them evolve.
Thanks Meriam Webster for being the caretaker of the global lexicon.
In my opinion, words are like stars in an interminable nebula of space. There is ample room for all of them.
Words twinkle and sparkle and grace the heavens like brilliant Christmas lights twinkling in the mind.
So when Merriam Webster adds new words to the old words, I say “bring it.” In my mind, the old words are like old friends, sitting around a fire, in a warm living room, and opening the front door to a stranger.
“Come on in and grab a beer,” the old words wave to the new words.
Merriam Webster is the keeper of the sacred words – so sacrosanct, so definitive, it is the Holy Bible of written history. And like any publication, bound by a hard cover on front and back, MW acts like there is only so much room, only so much ink, only so many pages.
In this new millennium of cloud files, why must we discriminate?
Why must MW add two words and eliminate two words? Is this Southwest Airlines and once your luggage goes over 50-pounds you have to pay an extra fee?
I say keep all the words. They are our friends. They are the building blocks of humanity. Without our words we are animals grunting at fire.
Celebrate the old words like we celebrate our grandparents. You wouldn’t just kick your Nana to the curb would you?
So why is Merriam Webster tossing Cassette into the scrap heap?
Merriam Webster’s out with the old and in with the new is upon us, celebrated and derided like Mr. Blackwell’s best dressed list.
What this means is that Merriam – Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is keeping up with the times. It is their list, and they can do what they want. But I want them to remember this list is really OUR list.
2011 words being put out to pasture are antiquated words like Cassette and typewriter. Why? because Middle School kids don’t even know what the hell these words mean. CASSETTE is so 1970’s, right.
Why get rid of words? It makes no sense. Just because middle school kids don’t know what words like fastidious and duplicity and assiduous mean, should we eliminate them? Just because the world is too stupid to know what words mean, to use them in every day situations, does that mean we should just replace them with words we know, words that are safe?
Kids today can barely conjugate and we are going to cater to their stupidity?
Merriam Webster has just opened the door for new words like “Helicopter Parents” and “mankini” and “jeggings” and “sexting” and “cyberbullying” and “Woot.”
According to published reports: Sadly, the new edition has no room for tremendous words like brabble – meaning ‘paltry noisy quarrel’. It has lost space for a word like growlery, meaning ‘place to growl in, private room, den’ – what we might call a man cave these days.
SAY IT AINT SO MERRIAM – SAY IT AINT’ SO.
And back to the deletion that says hey old guy, you don’t matter. “cassette tape” is no longer an entry worthy of your data base.
Bucks Burnett, owner of the Eight Track museum is very upset. “I’m going to ban the Oxford Dictionary from the museum. I have a copy and I’m going to recycle it! This decision to remove the word was made inside a Starbucks by 20-something editors on their lunch break.”
Eloquently and judiciously stated Mr. Burnett. Said with celerity and a visceral flavor, that is rarely seen in today’s cerebrally dysfunctional culture.
And that is crazy.